Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/addressesonvarioOOwill 




RnbiiECMlmms hBra.m, 




^^^^>>^^^:^^^^, 



ADDRESSES 

ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS 



BY THE LATE 

JAMES WATSON WILLIAMS 

OF UTICA, N.Y. 



•Mew l^orft 

^be IRnlcfterbocker press 

1903 



P566a 




f>ipLto' i' 



PREFACE. 

AT the suggestion of some of the friends of our father we 
have collected a few of his writings for distribution 
among those interested. It should have been done long ago, 
while there were still living more who remembered and ap- 
preciated his quiet observations on passing events and his 
scholarly wording of those observations. 

Neither the handwriting nor the EngHsh of these manu- 
scripts is such as can be duplicated often in this busy age, 
when the tendency is to ignore the sources of modem lan- 
guage in the usual educational courses. 

Written on topics of the day, and often for addresses on 
particular occasions, both topics and occasions now almost 
passed out of mind, only those who remember the circum- 
stances, or who are particularly interested in local history, 
will thoroughly appreciate many allusions in these papers. 
Nevertheless, some may care for them on their literary merit, 
and as relics of a period of more studious and careful writing 
than is usual, or perhaps possible, now, when rapid thought, 
rapid execution, the shorthand report and the typewritten 
manuscript are the roads to success in literature, as well as in 
every other calling. 

Our father was evidently a student of what he read, and 
his reading was mostly in the paths of history, biography and 
philosophy. His early life, and he began these addresses 
when only twenty-five years old, was coincident with the 
youth of the country, and his loyalty to its first theories and 
principles was extreme. Perhaps, in the Hght of more recent 
happenings, (when it has seemed necessary to change or 
modify some of these theories,) his expression of opinions may 



iv Preface 

appear a little narrow and prejudiced, to those more cosmo- 
politan in their views ; but such sentiments as his, even if time 
may prove them mistaken, must always cause a glow in the 
heart of a patriot, for they show that he had a sincere love of, 
and belief in, his country. He himself would have been the 
first to see and correct any errors in his judgment, had a few 
more years of health and strength been added to his life. At 
the time of the Civil War, he changed his views from convic- 
tion, and with them his long allegiance to his political party. 
He was quick to detect the advantages of a new machine, or 
method of work; harder, perhaps, was it, to relinquish his- 
torical facts which had been instilled in early youth, as when, 
in the last year of his life, he began to read Froude's History 
of England, then recently published ; he did not penetrate far 
into the second volume; the effort to make a saint of King 
Henry VHI so disturbed him, that although he did not pre- 
sume to doubt the facts as presented, he preferred not to have 
them presented to him; they seemed so completely revolu- 
tionizing, that, with his waning strength, it did not seem 
worth while to pursue the subject. 

At the time of his death, he was preparing another speech, 
to be delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Hamilton 
College, of which there are notes for almost the whole; un- 
fortunately, however, they are not in such shape as to enable 
us to make use of them, but they are enough to show that the 
mind was clear, the habit of thought vigorous and the eye of 
faith undimmed to the last. 

In character he was gentle and retiring, and had that most 
unusual feeling among men, that he would never lift a finger 
to obtain any office or honour. If he was to have it, it must be 
"thrust upon him." His failings leaned to virtue's side, and 
made it very hard for him to claim his just dues, or to refuse 
aid to any who asked, even when, perhaps, he should have 
done so. As usual with the studious and thoughtful, he was 
not fitted for the toil and striving necessary to keep pace -yt^ith 
the busy world, but found, in his books and in his garden, a 
solace for the irritations that he could not escape. His man- 



Preface v 

ners were gracious and courtly to all — ^the sort that come 
from good breeding and a really kind heart. No one can testify 
more truly to his excellencies and the blamelessness of his life 
than his daughters, who were, from childhood, his constant 
companions and pupils. Their evenings were made happy by 
the habitual presence of both father and mother, an unusual 
thing, perhaps, even in those days, and much more so now, in 
the present state of society. From those evenings they date 
their knowledge of many English Classics, read aloud by their 
father. A choice circle of friends were often gathered around 
their board, and there was, on these occasions, such excellent 
conversation, and such ready wit as are not often heard. 

What a picture in this bustling, nomadic age! A good 
citizen, living quietly, year after year, in his own town; a 
good father, spending his days and nights in the bosom of his 
family ; a man who found his pleasures in the use of a fine in- 
tellect, and yet did not deem it inconsistent with that intellect 
to be a good Churchman and a regular communicant ! 

"The Lord ordereth a good man's going, and maketh his 
way acceptable to Himself." 

In the subjoined obituary notices it is said that there were 
no premonitory symptoms before his death. This is not quite 
the fact, as for a year or two he had not been quite well, having 
had several alarming attacks after unusual exertions. 

Rachel Munson Williams Proctor. 
Maria Watson Williams Proctor. 

July, 1903. 



OBITUARY NOTICES. 

HON. J. WATSON WILLIAMS. 

JAMES WATSON WILLIAMS died suddenly at his resi- 
dence in this city last week Wednesday evening. Without 
warning of sickness or premonition of death he was attacked 
suddenly with paralysis of the heart. Almost before his con- 
dition was known, and some time before a physician could 
reach his bedside, he breathed his last. Wednesday afternoon 
he was present at the Utica Dispensary, a charitable institu- 
tion of which he was an active manager. Those who saw him 
tihere remarked a slight pallor on his face, but were more struck 
by the unusual cheerfulness which he evinced. He seemed 
full of hope and happiness. The upraised arm of Death cast 
no shadow. 

"Mr. Williams was a native of Utica. He was born in 
the year 1810. His father, the Hon. Nathan Williams, once 
Judge of the Supreme Court of our State, was numbered 
among the pioneers of Oneida County. Bom neither to pov- 
erty nor to wealth, but surrounded by all the happy, whole- 
some influences which culture and refinement create, James 
Watson Williams grew to manhood and developed a mind 
admirable in its capabilities. He studied law and was ad- 
mitted to practice at an early age. But the routine work of 
the legal profession offered few attractions to him. In 1835, 
or thereabouts, he became editor of the Weekly Observer. 
Even at that time, when he had just entered upon his twenty- 
fifth year, he was a polished, scholarly writer, a clear, original 
thinker, and a good logician. His connection with this journal 
extended over a period of more than two years. 



viii Obituary Notices 

"In 1847 Mr. Williams was elected Mayor of Utica. The 
following year he took an active part in politics, earnestly ad- 
vocating the election of Lewis Cass to the Presidency. The 
section of the Democratic party with which he acted placed him 
in nomination for Congress. The supporters of Van Buren 
named Charles A. Mann for the same position, while the 
Whigs nominated O. B. Matteson. A well-contested three- 
handed contest ensued, in which Mr. Matteson proved vic- 
torious. 

" Mr. Williams served as a School Commissioner of Utica, 
and as a Trustee of Hamilton College. He was for some years 
the President of the Water Works Company, and he filled 
many other honorable and responsible positions. But it was 
not in public life that his remarkable talents shone brightest. 
He was a philosopher rather than a worker. The spur of 
ambition never pricked his soul. He was content to study, 
to enrich his mind, to expand his attainments for the simple 
pleasure which comprehensive knowledge yields to her faithful 
devotees. He sought no public recognition. He was endowed 
with a retiring, unassuming nature. Perhaps he was not in- 
different to fame, but he would not enter the lists where the 
self-seekers were fighting for advancement. Those who fan- 
cied him indolent never knew him. He devoted more hours 
to intellectual labor than most men give to any work. His 
mind was a vast storehouse of rare and useful knowledge. 
History, literature, science, politics, and art were all familiar 
friends to him. He was not a mere reader ; he was a reasoner. 
The latent forces of his mind were never aroused to full ac- 
tivity. He was a spectator rather than an actor in the drama 
of life. But where the actors jostle each other so viciously 
we may pause to admire the calm character of one who might 
have entered the ranks and conquered his way, but who pre- 
ferred to view the scene, not cynically but genially, satisfied' 
with comparative obscurity, happy in the love of his friends, 
gladly giving counsel and imparting information, and aiding 
others to reap the visible rewards of popular favor. 

" About the year 1850 Mr. Williams was married to the only 



Obituary Notices ix 

daughter of the late Alfred Miinson — a lady of great culture 
and refinement. His domestic life was full of peace and 
pleasure. To his surviving family — to the wife who was so 
devotedly attached to him, and to the children who are ren- 
dered fatherless— the sympathy of the community will go out 
freely in this hour of their sudden and overwhelming bereave- 
ment." — UHca Observer, May, 1873. 



THE LATE JxlMES WATSON WILLIAMS. 

" The public were surprised and shocked to learn on Thurs- 
day morning of the sudden death of J. Watson Williams, an 
event totally unexpected, as his health was apparently good 
up to his last moments. Mr. Williams was born in this city 
May 18, 1 8 10, and was the son of Hon. Nathan Williams, for 
many years circuit judge, whose memory will long be held in 
remembrance for his sterling virtues as a man and a citizen. 

" The deceased was a man of unusual ability and attain- 
ments. In his youth he held the first positions in the schools 
and in Hobart College. As a classical scholar he excelled, and 
was remarkable for his taste and skill in a wide range of accom- 
plishments. He was well read in English literature, and had 
a cultivated and refined appreciation of all that related to the 
arts. He spoke and wrote with ease and with a choiceness of 
phraseology that showed he had given his days and nights to 
the best of models. He was well fitted to prepare and deliver 
addresses on public occasions upon a great variety of topics. 
At the time of his death he was busied in preparing such a dis- 
coiu^se to be shortly spoken before the Phi Beta Kappa of 
Hamilton College. 

" Mr. Williams had the abilities which qualified him for 
eminence and usefulness in pubhc station. Yet his critical 
taste and his habits of minute and careful elaboration held 
him back in some degree from reaching that prominence in the 
public mind to which by his talents he was entitled. His 
very fastidiousness and nicety were apt to make him dis- 



X Obituary Notices 

satisfied with his own productions, and prevented his coming 
forward as frequently and as boldly as he should have done 
in justice to himself. Added to this, his scholarly habits and 
inclinations led him to follow, in preference, the more peaceful 
and retired walks of private life. All those who knew him, 
however, from his earliest youth, felt that if he had seen fit to 
throw himself into the struggle for public distinction he had 
the qualities and attainments that would have enabled him to 
reach any point at which his ambition might have aimed. 
Such was the opinion of his early associates, who were best 
fitted to judge of his mental powers, and of those, too, whose 
knowledge of men gave them opportunities of judging. 

" Beyond the respect inspired by his abilities, Mr. Williams 
was also held in high regard by this community for his un- 
bending integrity. From his earliest youth his career was 
marked by the blamelessness of his character, and, in all his 
dealings since, he was upright, honorable, and courteous. In 
his disposition he was mild, amiable, and genial, while his in- 
tercourse with his fellow-men was marked with kindly char- 
ity and benevolent interest. His religious convictions were 
strong and clear, his devotion to the Church of his fathers 
constant and invaluable. 

" In all the minor matters of Hfe and business he was re- 
markable for the neatness and accuracy of his transactions. 
His fine penmanship, his clear-headed insight, his conscien- 
tious fidelity, and the nice care with which everything was 
executed that fell to his lot to do, were so universally felt that 
demands were frequent upon him to perform public and 
official duty which no one else so well could do. 

" A considerate and indulgent husband and a tender father, 
his loss deprives wife and daughters of a support and comfort 
for which the warm sympathy of the whole community can 
but feebly compensate." — Utica Herald, May 27, 1873. 



ADDRESSES 



AN ORATION DELIVERED AT UTICA, 
JULY 4TH, 1835. 

THIS day, Fellow Citizens, however hackneyed some of its 
appropriate ceremonies may have become by their con- 
stant recurrence, is still a day the return of which awakens the 
most grateful emotions. iVn anniversary so imique, when con- 
sidered with reference to the circumstances which gave it 
origin; and when considered with reference to its associations, 
so consecrated to all our better feelings ; can owe but little of 
its interest to the pomp and circumstance with which it may be 
commemorated. These are but the external testimonials of 
that deep moral interest which we continue to feel in an event, 
whose causes are eloquently narrated in the simple and digni- 
fied stunmary just read to us; and whose consequences are 
legible in every thing by which we are surrounded. It is 
fortunate, my friends, that while we cherish its memory, it 
does not greatly depend upon those who are honored with a 
place in the ceremonies of its observance, to commend it to 
your affections or your reverence. It is an honor and a bless- 
ing, too, which we do not perhaps sufficiently appreciate, that 
the theme it suggests to our consideration is no novel one. 
To us, neither freedom itself nor a reflection upon it, has the 
charm of novelty; and it is from this very circumstance that 
we should derive our proudest and most pleasurable feelings. 
There are those in abundance, in climes less favored than ours, 
to whom the topic would be fraught with novelty; to whom 
the very name of liberty is an unfamiliar sound, and who have 
never imagined its real existence. However easily we might 
commend ourselves to the regard of such, by expatiating in a 
field fertile of noble thoughts and sublime sentiments; where 



2 James Watson Williams 

every thing, to such auditors, would breathe the fragrance and 
newness of spring; yet God be thanked that it is not to such 
I am to address myself now. God be fervently thanked that 
I see about me those, and only those, to whom freedom, civil 
and religious, is a subject of daily contemplation; and, what 
is of far more consequence, of daily enjoyment. 

It is a grateful duty, fellow citizens, to recur to the striking 
scenes of our past history, and revive, on this day, the memory 
of acts which shed a lustre upon the character of our ancestr}^, 
and are so prolific of blessings to ourselves. It is the more 
grateful, because we can do so with a consciousness that there 
is nothing to disturb our complacency or dash our pride in 
the retrospect. Never was there a people who have done so 
little to offend the world, at the same time that they have 
achieved so much to advantage themselves. Ours is not a 
history, — like most histories, — -of countries subjugated ; of 
tyranny practised ; of treaties infringed ; of public faith 
violated. No, my countrymen ; it is a simple and sub- 
lime narrative of a nation delivered ; of successful wars 
against tyranny; of public faith preserved; of devotion to 
the principles of good government ; of the supremacy of 
the popular will; of the establishment of civil and religious 
liberty ; of the encouragement of the arts of peace ; of a people 
self -governed, enlightened, and happy. Do you ask to be 
referred to the various steps and gradations by which we have 
mounted to our enviable elevation? — They are briefly, but 
forcibly, recounted in the flight and landing of the Pilgrims; 
the establishment of the Colonies ; the senseless oppressions of 
the Motherland ; the Confederation for the purpose of redress- 
ing them; the battles of Lexington and Bimker's Hill; the 
Declaration of Independence ; and the successful Support of it. 
These are topics with which we have been conversant from our 
childhood ; events, some of them, of which the living witnesses 
are now before me: those venerable men, who still linger 
amongst us, like the last stars in the dawn of morning, to shed 
upon us a little longer the light of their memory and their 
experience. — The mere enumeration of these things summons 



Addresses 3 

a crowd of thronging reminiscences that fill our bosoms with 
pride and gratefulness. For more than half a century they 
have occupied the pen of the ready writer and the tongue of 
the eloquent. Their story is as familiar to our ears as the 
household words of our infancy; and I can add nothing to 
impress it more strikingly upon your memories. Leaving all 
these, therefore, to the current of your own reflections, indulge 
me while I turn to other themes suggested by our later history. 
Reflect a moment, my countrymen, upon our national and 
personal happiness; upon the comforts, the luxuries, the 
political and moral blessings so exuberantly bestowed upon 
us; — and then look back, with wonder, on the wisdom and 
foresight, to which, under God, these fortunate results are 
traceable. At the close of the Revolution this extensive 
country numbered three millions of people. Our whole in- 
terior was literally, like that Eastern desert which the children 
of Israel traversed in their pilgrimage, "a waste and howling 
wilderness ' ' ; rendered more gloomy and repulsive in its aspect 
by a contrast with the narrow belt of civilization that bordered 
the Atlantic coast and the shores of the Great Lakes. Here 
and there in the midst of this inhospitable wild, might be dis- 
cerned a spot where some hardy settler had penetrated ; the 
nucleus, around which were soon to cluster the more enterprising 
of the sons of the older colonies; the centre of some future 
State, which was soon to join the "New Constellation" that 
had already begun to coruscate in the West. With the excep- 
tion of these scattered abodes, shedding an occasional gleam 
upon the otherwise unbroken shadow of this immense tract of 
forest, it was the divided domain of the wild beast and the 
savage. The regulated industry, the arts, the refinements of 
civilized life, had not as yet reclaimed this boundless waste to 
minister to the wants, the happiness, or the honor of man. It 
was a blank in nature: its silence unbroken; its resources 
profitless; its riches undiscovered; its now fertile fields un- 
cultivated; its magnificent streams rolling onward in silent 
and gloomy grandeur to the ocean; its wonderful beauties 
unappreciated, because they were unknown. 



4 James Watson Williams 

Such is an indistinct outline of the condition of the greater 
part of our territory at the period I have referred to. Three 
milHons of people were just beginning to enjoy the fruits of a 
contest which had not been successful without a profuse ex- 
penditure of treasure and of blood. The clouds of hostility 
which had so long darkened the horizon were now cleared 
away ; and the political and civil atmosphere had assumed an 
unwonted calmness and serenity. To a people who had drawn 
the sword from necessity only, in self defence, and without a 
rage for conquest, to return it to its scabbard was natural and 
easy. They sought the pursuits and pleasures of peace with 
an appetite sharpened by the fatigues and privations they had 
suffered; and with a wisdom and forecast, which well became 
their character, they determined upon a polic}^ which was to 
render them a great and a numerous people. 

In the ordinary course of nature, fellow citizens, this would 
have required the patience of centuries. "Without any ac- 
cessions to their numbers beyond the usual and natural in- 
crease, they would have proceeded slowly, step by step, from 
infancy to manhood. In the lapse of an age, perhaps they 
might have seen their numbers doubled. They felt not only 
the want of men ; but the want, nay, the absolute necessity, of 
the experience, the arts, and the manufactures of the old world, 
to make them comfortable and happy. Blest by nature with 
a profusion of all that the art of man can render conducive to 
the enjoyment of life, they wanted that art to make it so. They 
knew the oppressions of Europe, and the desire of its people to 
escape the service of their taskmasters ; and stimulated by the 
double motive of political interest and political generosity; 
notwithstanding the doubts of the overcautious, the fears of 
the timid, and the scruples of the prejudiced; with a noble 
and far sighted policy of which time has shown the value ; they 
made their country the resort and the resting place of the 
World. 

The eloquence of Patrick Henry contributed mainly to the 
adoption of this policy. It was doubted, opposed, and at- 
tempted to be overborne with restrictions. But that extra- 



Addresses 5 

ordinary man possessed the gift of prophecy no less than the 
tongue of eloquence; and as a general defence of the en- 
couragement of immigration to our shores, his speech in the 
Virginia House of Delegates is absolutely unrivalled for its 
force, its feeling, its truth, and its brevit}^. 

Since the utterance of that prophetic speech, half a century 
has elapsed ; — and what do we now behold ? 

With a growth unparalleled in the history of the rise of 
empires, those three millions, which, in the common course of 
things, would but have doubled their numbers, have accumu- 
lated fourfold. The thirteen colonies, instead of "lingering on 
through a long and sickly minority," have shot up to the 
muscle and vigor of manhood, and are now expanded into 
twenty-four powerful confederated States. That terrible 
wilderness beyond the Alleghanies has been magically trans- 
formed into the very garden of America. In all the arts 
which minister to the comforts or the luxuries of life, we are 
but a step behind the improvements and accomplishments of 
the old world ; and in many we have already surpassed them. 
We feel that we are trul}^ independent, and we know that we 
are truly great. The policy which has so largely contributed 
to this happy result, has produced, perhaps, the common pro- 
portion of accompanying evils ; but it would have been worse 
than folly to have risqued its acknowledged and evident bene- 
fits, in an attempt to do what no art, or contrivance, or in- 
genuity of man can do: to enjoy good without tasting evil; 
to monopolize the virtue of the old world without being tainted 
with some of its vices. 

Notwithstanding this wonderful increase of numbers and 
prosperity, fellow citizens, we still want men. Our vast unin- 
habited domain must yet be peopled. Wave after wave of 
population must roll on until we reach the shores of the 
Pacific. In the meantime, let us not be niggards of the bounty 
of Providence, nor look with a distrustful eye upon the over- 
flowing population of the Eastern Hemisphere, who desire to 
better their fortunes in a land where every man that works 
may eat. Every shipload of immigrants is an addition to our 



6 James Watson Williams 

aggregate wealth and prosperity. Bones, muscles, and sinews, 
endowed with life, are a productive capital. They possess in- 
trinsic worth. They found new settlements in our wide do- 
main ; they clear away our forests ; they cultivate our lands ; 
the}^ develop our resources; they achieve our internal im- 
provements ; they enrich us with the products of their labor ; 
they acquire individual, and contribute to the public, wealth ; 
they add to our national strength ; they fill our manufactories 
and our workshops ; and we ought not to complain if a trivial 
proportion, in common with ourselves, contribute to fill our 
poorhouses and our prisons. It is to foreigners, my friends, 
that we are largely indebted as well for the present enjoyment 
of our liberty as for the original acquisition of it. In fact, we 
are a nation of foreigners. This remarkable people is descended 
from those who fled the oppressions of Europe; and it is to 
the continued oppressions of Europe that we must attribute, 
in a considerable degree, our unprecedented strides towards 
greatness. 

Having, by the adoption of the liberal measures, the conse- 
quences of which I have already anticipated, evidenced our 
freedom from prejudice against the inhabitants of other climes ; 
a most singular and, to the mind of a philanthropist, a most 
sublime spectacle was exhibited to the world: that of a new 
people, assembled by their delegates, in a time of profound 
peace, to devise a system of self government. Hitherto, for- 
tune, the usurpations of ages, or the will of conquerors and 
despots, — with such modifications only as the boldness and 
hardihood of their subjects had from time to time wrested 
from them, — had formed the government of most of the nations 
of the earth. In some of these, the gradual encroachments 
upon the ancient prerogatives of the monarch and the nobility, 
effected by turbulence, civil war and revolution, had under- 
mined the foundations of despotism ; made the pleasure of the 
ruler in some sort dependent upon the will of the subject ; and 
secured a partial enjoyment of the light of liberty. But never, 
until now, had mankind beheld an august assembly of freemen, 
forgetting their jealousies, sacrificing their prejudices and even 



Addresses 7 

their affections, and deliberately, without force or fear, framing 
a system of civil restraint to be submitted to the very people 
upon whom it was to be obligatory. None but a people confi- 
dent of their own intelligence and honesty of purpose, mutually 
trusting in each other's integrity, and determined to teach the 
world a noble lesson of the wisdom and practicability of self 
government, would have consented to so great an experiment. 
None but men, who knew their own gigantic powers of intellect, 
who had tested their wisdom and their strength in the councils 
and warfare of the Revolution, would have undertaken it. 
None but patriots, conciliatory, cautious, and prudent, would 
have achieved it successfully. Here, questions which under 
other circumstances would have aroused bitter feelings of 
rivalry and contention, were to be directly grappled with and 
accommodated ; interests were to be sacrificed to the spirit of 
conciliation, which would never have been yielded to force. 
Yet every difficulty vanished before wisdom and magnanimity ; 
and through forbearance and compromise, a written constitu- 
tion, the best political offspring of the wit of man, was estab- 
lished by the consent of the people themselves. From that 
moment, the government, which had before been stigmatized 
as "a rope of sand," became a chain of union and strength. 
The same Washington who had fought our battles, and won 
the chaplet of glory in martial life, had been kindly preserved 
by Providence to give a favorable impulse, by the weight of his 
character, to the first setting out of the new constitution ; and 
not until its worth and suitableness had been fairly tested, did 
it please God to remove that wonderful man to a scene of 
greater glory. 

We had then established a government, which, while it was 
calculated to administer every salutary restraint, interfered 
not with rational freedom. Its faults were felt, but they were 
perceived to be the common imperfections of all things human ; 
its virtues commended it to the respect and admiration of 
mankind. While the statesmen and jurisconsults of the East- 
ern Hemisphere were puzzling themselves to little purpose to 
define the meaning of ' ' Civil Libert}^ " ; a phrase of which their 



8 James Watson Williams 

definitions show they had no clear conception ; we were giving 
a practical exemplification of it. While they contented them- 
selves with words; we, true to our republican character, 
stopped not short of things. To try fairh^ our capacity for 
self government, was the grand experiment ; knowing that, if 
badly governed, the blame would be our own ; if governed well, 
it would be because we governed ourselves. Thus far our 
political machinery has operated with a steady and effective 
movement; with sufficient force to overcome the occasional 
disorders to which every system is naturally subject ; and yet 
so mildly that we are almost unconscious of its motion. 

It is a remark of a great political philosopher, that "men 
thinking freely will in particular instances think differently." 
This is a sufficient explanation of the origin of parties in a free 
government. A desire to give strength to the Union on one 
side, and to the States on the other, was the natural dividing- 
line between those who differed in the outset upon our public 
measures. Besides, it is one of the defects of written con- 
stitutions, owing to the ambiguousness and uncertainty of 
language, that they cannot always define with accuracy, the 
designs, the limits, the latitude, and the checks which are neces- 
sary to be observed in every system, and particularly in one so 
complex, in some of its aspects, as ours. This inherent failing 
leads to a difference of understanding and construction; and 
this, in its ultimate result, to party divisions. While, there- 
fore, we must submit to these as inseparable from a system so 
uniformly beneficial, we ought never to forget the parting 
advice of the Father of his Countr}^ to restrain them within 
their legitimate bounds. A calm discussion of doubtful points ; 
a decent investigation of personal and moral fitness for stations 
of public trust ; — these are demanded by the genius of our in- 
stitutions. Btit while we indulge a reasonable liberty in these 
matters, it is unbecoming our character to suffer that liberty 
to degenerate into licentiousness ; to allow the spirit of party 
to infuse itself into all our relations, civil and moral ; for it is 
ever to be remembered that this is a downward tendency, in- 
finitely more threatening to the perpetuity of the republic, than 



Addresses 9 

the confiding of power to the worst hands that intelligent men 
are likely to entrust with it. 

It is not surprising, fellow citizens, that we should be occa- 
sionally perplexed with questions of public concern, which, if 
improperly handled, must agitate the community to its very 
centre. The firm and sound opinions of the body of the nation 
have already disposed of one which threatened to involve us 
in dismay and disunion; and, even now, we are trembling to 
approach another, in which feeling and practicability are so 
widely at variance, that the heat of a momient in discussing it 
may arouse a flame that shall dissolve our union, as flax at the 
touch of fire. In all questions of this complexion, it is our 
bounden duty, while we do not overlook what is right, to pur- 
sue that only which is expedient; remembering always that 
however easy it might be to choose between right and ex- 
pediency in regulating our individual concerns, in matters of 
public interest, abstract right is not invariably practical jus- 
tice. However much the philanthropist and Christian may 
lament the existence of slavery amongst us, as a blot upon the 
otherwise untarnished escutcheon of our fame; however re- 
pugnant it may be to all our kinder feelings, as private men, to 
look upon the fetters which bind so many of our race to servi- 
tude in a land where every inhalation should breathe of free- 
dom ; yet it ought not to escape us that our singular political 
condition exposes us, in the attempt to wipe out this blot, 
to greater evils than any which are now suffered ; that our first 
duty, as a nation, after our duty to God, is to ourselves ; and 
that all philanthropy which loses sight of this obligation, what- 
ever honor may be due to the feelings which give it birth, is 
of kin to that zeal, unwise and ruinous, that rushes forward 
reckless of consequences; unwilling to leave to time and 
opinion, what time and opinion, if left to themselves, will 
more speedily accomplish. 

But not only from questions of a political bearing is it 
that we are to apprehend danger. The disputes of sectaries in 
religion, exciting as they do the most ardent and irrepressible 
of human feelings, are always urged with more heat and 



lo James Watson Williams 

enthusiasm than any other ; and it is a singular reflection that 
the virtue of charity, which of all virtues is the most strongly 
commended by every moral and religious code, as well as by 
reason itself, should be the virtue least displayed in the strife 
of proselytism. Prejudices against sects, as such, are utterly 
repugnant to the spirit of our institutions ; for it is one of our 
greatest boasts, and a principle guarded by the wisest con- 
stitutional defences, that we tolerate no inquisition into creeds 
and opinions. Whenever religious jealousy or religious am- 
bition shall prompt an attempt at the prevention or extin- 
guishment of any particular faith ; or at the acquisition of 
civil power for any particular party, Protestant or Catholic, 
Jewish, Turkish, or Heretic; at that moment we shall see the 
handwriting on the wall warning us that our days are num- 
bered and our glory about to. pass away. Then, fellow citizens, 
it will be the common duty of us all, without distinction of 
faith, party, or origin, to rally vigorously in behalf of our 
freedom, both civil and religious ; assured that the destruction 
of either is the inevitable ruin of both. 

Looking abroad, my countrymen, we see the thrones of 
Europe disquieted, and a part of this continent, confused 
and warring; and, as our returning eyes survey our own 
shores, where all is peace and contentment, it is impossible not 
to apply to our condition the impassioned ejaculation of Moses 
as he prophetically anticipated the future glories of his people : 
"Happy art thou, Israeli Who is like unto thee?" — Here 
we behold a land on which Heaven hath copiously showered 
down its choicest blessings. Peace, plenty, and the capacity 
to enjoy them ; success in all our enterprises ; as a nation, free 
from debt and entangling alliances; as individuals, enjoying 
the benefits of education, morality, and religion unmolested; 
free to choose our pursuits, and indulge our opinions, without 
let or hinderance. What can we desire which we have not; 
what hope for that we may not reasonably anticipate? En- 
courage knowledge and the virtues, which when once they 
adorn our private life will give a tone to the national temper ; 
which teach us to do our duty as men and citizens, with a 



Addresses 1 1 

sacred regard to our future responsibility; and these will 
enable us to shun the rocks upon which every government of 
antiquity has wrecked, and many of modem times are even 
now dashing. Private virtue is the only stable foundation of 
public order; and whatever succeeding generation shall see its 
decay, will witness first, the tottering, then, the crush of the 
repiiblic ; and to close the scene, the burial of all the brightest 
anticipations of man beneath its ruins. 



AN ORATION DELIVERED AT THE GROVE, 
TRENTON FALLS, JULY 4th, 1837. 

THERE is nothing, Fellow Citizens, better calculated to 
excite and keep alive the patriotism of a people than the 
celebration, in a proper spirit and with appropriate ceremonies, 
of its National Holidays. It is on those occasions that the 
memory, reverting to the past, elevates the mind with recol- 
lections of all that is pleasant and glorious in the history of 
one's country, and of all that is eminent and praiseworthy in 
the lives of his ancestors. It is on those occasions, also, that 
the patriot, reflecting on the present and looking forward to 
the future ; and, in that double view, weighing how much de- 
pends upon the generation which exists and that which is to 
follow; is aroused to a determination that, so far as depends 
upon his efforts and example, nothing of what memory recalls 
as glorious, or eminent, or praiseworthy, shall be diminished or 
obscured. 

It is right and desirable, my friends, occasionally to awaken 
this feeling; which, otherwise, in times of quietness such as 
those which have so long smiled upon us, is apt, like the unused 
sword of the warrior, to rust and consume itself away. What 
occasion can be more fitly appropriated to such a duty than 
the annual recurrence of the day which witnessed the Declara- 
tion of American Independence and the enthusiastic and 
solemn pledge, on the part of our venerated forefathers, of 
"life, fortune, and sacred honor" to the cause of Liberty? It 
is for the performance of this duty of patriotism that we are 
now met together in a temple framed by the hand of God him- 
self, surroim.ded by the tokens of His power and beneficence ; 
a temple where not only the hearts of the free, but all that 



Addresses 13 

is beatitiful in nature, conspire to do willing homage to Heaven, 
and to testify to the goodness and omnipotence of the Great 
Author of Life, Liberty and Happiness. 

We are assembled, my countrymen, not only to do an act 
of grateful and unforced reverence to the memory of great 
men ; but, while we do thern reverence, to learn a lesson from 
their example; such an example as no other ancestors ever 
left for the imitation of their posterity. Not that it is in 
every respect faultless ; but it approaches as near perfection 
as the fallibility of human nature and the state of the times 
in which they lived, would suffer it. In their character we 
observe always the elements and generally the full display of 
whatever virtues can add worth and dignity to manhood; 
unsullied by any positive vices, though occasionally marred 
by inconsistencies which were the offspring of long established 
prejudices that only time has the power to eradicate. 

We cannot perhaps employ the present occasion, consider- 
ing the circumstances of the country, to better purpose than 
in a brief review of the characteristic traits of the fathers of 
American liberty. There will be pleasure and profit in the 
retrospect. We shall learn by it how to appreciate the old 
paternal virtues, which distinguished the founders of the re- 
public, and at the same time discover the extent of our own 
degeneracy. 

Let your imaginations lead you, my countrymen, to the 
Atlantic coast; and there view the scene which memory 
sketches for your contemplation. — The rock on which you 
stand is the rock of Plymouth. Before you is the ocean which 
in its farthest sweep washes the island home of your fathers. 
Yonder vessel which is borne towards the ' ' rock bound coast ' ' 
at your feet, and now discharges its living burthen — a wear}^ 
and almost disheartened group — is the Mayflower. Those 
whom you see gathering upon the desolate shore are daring 
and determined men, who have fled from the tyranny of the 
old world to seek a refuge and establish an empire in this. 
Here they plant their standard, uncertain of the destiny which 
Providence has in store for them, but still confident in the 



14 James Watson Williams 

protection of that Providence whom they have never yet 
learned to distrust. The scene is truly unpromising of aught 
save gloom and despondency ; and as you behold it, deformed 
by wintry storms — dreary and comfortless — you ask: "Why 
have these men abandoned a land endeared to them by all 
those attachments which shed a charm upon existence ? Why 
have they thus severed every tie that ordinarily binds men to 
their country, braved the perils of the seas, and come hither 
to encounter famine, disease, and the horrors of savage hos- 
tility? Is it from a love of change — a restlessness of dispo- 
sition — a desire for wealth — a motive of ambition?" These, 
my friends, as we can testify, are strong impulses; but 
the impulse that prompted them is far stronger, and it is 
characteristic. They answer you with the Apostle : " ' None of 
these things moved us.' We had possessions; we had compe- 
tence; we were surrounded by our kindred, and by all that 
commonly makes men happy; but we lacked one thing, and 
that one thing was Liberty — Liberty of Conscience. To 
obtain and to perpetuate this it is that we have sacrificed all 
that was attractive — our ease, our kindred, our homes, our 
country. To us there is no freedom, where there is not free- 
dom to worship God according to the dictates of our own con- 
sciences ; and cost what it will, we are determined to enjoy it." 
This band of pilgrim immigrants, as you have just beheld 
them, were destitute of every reliance but God and their own 
severe virtues; those virtues which adorn freedom no less than 
they become Christianity; which give life, strength, and en- 
durance to a popular government. Of these the first was 
Industry, without which it was impossible to render their con- 
dition tolerable. In its train followed Frugality, the exercise 
of which, at all times desirable, was rendered imperious by 
circumstances ; Perseverance, essential to the ultimate success 
of all human efforts; Temperance, necessar}'' to the rational 
enjoyment of life, and to the support of all the other vir- 
tues; Courage, for the defence of their possessions and their 
freedom ; and Fortitude, to endure the disasters and reverses 
of their exposed condition. On these virtues, next to Heaven, 



Addresses 15 

as on a fotindation of rock, did they depend as the chief sup- 
ports of their independence and prosperity. They adhered to 
them with Spartan, nay with Christian, rigor, and taught their 
posterity to revere and cultivate them as their chiefest safe- 
guard. They were the best inheritance which they could 
leave behind them. 

Years and generations passed away ; but these simple and 
elevating virtues, transmitted from father to son, endured in 
unabating vigor, and gave character to the now increased 
population of the colonies. The usurpations of the mother 
country, to which they had ever been disposed to remain loyal, 
so long as loyalty was consistent with freedom, began to excite 
distrust ; and after the most eloquent and dignified but vain 
remonstrances, they finally aroused open hostility. The de- 
scendants of the Pilgrims possessed all the hardihood of their 
progenitors; and while they had multiplied in wealth and 
numbers, they had not decayed in virtue. Educated to the 
noble and independent pursuits of agriculture, or to the enter- 
prising ones of commerce; luxury, extravagance, and effemi- 
nacy, the common vices of prosperity, had not as yet sapped 
the soundness of their character. They were all that their 
fathers had been, with more expanded intelligence and less 
bigotry. They were men who not only knew their rights, but 
knowing, dared maintain them. As their sires had fled from 
Britain, and submitted to every endurable sacrifice, for con- 
science' sake ; so they were resolved that they would resist to 
the uttermost the aggressions of British power upon their civil 
rights, and submit to equal sacrifices for their sake. It is un- 
necessary to recapitulate the story of their tmexampled self- 
denials and grievances, or to picture at length the reverses, pa- 
tiently and heroically endured, and the triumphs, moderately 
enjoyed and wisely used, which resulted in the final achieve- 
ment of their freedom. You have all heard and read, a hun- 
dred times, of the privations and the sufferings, the boldness, 
the wisdom, the fortitude, the energy, the perseverance which 
distinguished the period of the Revolution. They would derive 
no additional force or interest from a hurried repetition. 



1 6 James Watson Williams 

Tradition, history, painting and poetry have combined to 
commemorate them. It is sufficient for my present purpose 
to remind you that the blessings we at this moment enjoy are 
due to the triumph of exalted virtues from which we have 
greatly degenerated. 

Have we not, think you, thus degenerated? I appeal to 
you, veteran survivors of the period that tried men's souls — 
you whom I see before me — bent with years spent in the 
service of freedom — I appeal to you — Have we not thus de- 
generated ? We complain of the present times ; but what are 
the present times that we should complain of them, in com- 
parison with those that you witnessed? You loved liberty; 
but you were obliged to starve, to go unclad, to fight, and to 
bleed for it. We love liberty too; but we enjoy it, furnished 
to our hands without a struggle or a sacrifice. You endured 
toils and miseries incomparable to obtain the privileges in 
which you now participate with us ; and we, in a moment of 
temporary and slight reverse of fortune, are almost ready to 
forget your sufferings and repine at our own. 

Without entering into any political or partisan disquisition 
as to the causes of the difficulties under which our country 
labors, — a disquisition which neither the time nor the occasion 
would justify, however sincerely it might be attempted, — it 
may be safely said that, so far as they are real, they are at- 
tributable in no slight degree, to a neglect of the substantial 
good qualities exemplified in the lives of our progenitors. 
Were they contented with a moderate competence? We are 
greedy of more abounding riches. Were they frugal? We 
are running into a ruinous extravagance. Were they stable 
and persevering? We are ever varying our pursuits in the 
vain hope of realizing wealth in some different avocation from 
that to which we were educated. We leave our farms, our 
merchandise, and our professions, and seek elsewhere that 
prosperity which only perseverance can secure. Instead of 
cherishing those qualities which are necessary in a republic, 
we are imitating the luxury of monarchies, where there are 
vast accumulations of hereditary wealth. It is time, my 



Addresses 17 

fellow citizens, that we should return to the ancestral virtues. 
They are the genuine virtues which adorn life, and become a 
simple and republican people. 

If we judge from the past, there appears to be in nations 
a constant tendency towards degeneracy and downfall. After 
arriving at a certain pitch of prosperity, their course is gen- 
erally downwards from prosperity to indulgence, and from 
indulgence to ruin. It becomes us to learn a lesson from the 
past, and to seek to avoid those vices which have precipitated 
the most flourishing states to dissolution. The common evils 
which beset a highly prosperous condition are luxury, ex- 
travagance, and effeminacy. Prosperity, however, may be 
enjoyed without those usual concomitants; and it should be 
the chief study of this great people, as it was the ardent 
desire of their unostentatious ancestry, to reach that desirable 
point of national happiness where abundance may be possessed 
with philosophy and ease without effeminacy. But I fear, my 
countrymen, that we have wandered somewhat from the true 
path to this wished for consummation, and have been too 
much bent upon discovering some royal road to riches. The 
husbandman has left his fields unfilled, to tempt fortune in 
distant parts of our domain; the merchant, easy in credit and 
confident in his resources, has drawn upon the future, and 
meantime run riot in luxury; the professional man has 
abandoned his books, and sought in speculations a rapid 
accumulation of that wealth which Providence designs as the 
reward of well directed labor — labor which under the semblance 
of a perpetual curse is the great sweetener and solace of life. 
An inordinate spirit of gain seems to have infected us all to 
madness ; and like gamblers, attracted by delusive hopes, we 
have deviated from the direct course to prosperity until the 
loss of fortune and credit begins to recover us to our senses. 
We may now learn anew the neglected paternal lesson that 
industry, frugality, and perseverance in our respective pur- 
suits will ensure to every man in this favored land a compe- 
tence; and a competence is real wealth. Let us acquire and 
soberly enjoy it, and leave it to our descendants, as our 



1 8 James Watson Williams 

forefathers left' it to theirs, to make a similar acquisition and 
obtain similar enjoyments for themselves. It will be a more 
valuable legacy than any we can provide for them. Such has 
been the aim of our simple institutions. We have endeavored, 
and that most wisely, to do away with those false distinctions 
which arise from the possession of wealth; and to secure its 
distribution amongst all the citizens of the republic, by dis- 
countenancing extravagant accumulations for the ruin of 
posterity. 

Besides this all prevailing spirit of gain, there are other 
tendencies of the present day which should be closely watched 
and timely restrained. They are the more likely to escape 
vigilance, because they appear under the attractive guise of 
reformation. Am.ongst these tendencies is a proneness to ex- 
tremes ; a fondness for untried theories to the prejudice of old 
experience; an attachment to novelties in political no less 
than in religious affairs. Ultraism is the vice of this genera- 
tion. It has ruined much that is useful without substituting 
anything that is useful or practicable in its stead. True wis- 
dom, however much the maxim may be derided by those 
who are disposed to carry even good designs to an evil excess, 
lies between extremes. Radical changes, tinless evils are so 
great as to become intolerable, are rarely necessary; and yet 
the demagogue and the zealot are never contented with gradual 
reformation. They despise the dictates of moderation and 
sound policy, because these are too cool advisers, and stand in 
the way of some favorite principle. Unless the old fashioned 
prudence and good sense of our ancestors continue to control 
their posterity, recklessness will speedily prostrate institutions 
which have cost blood and years to establish. 

As another symptom of a tendency to degenerate, I may 
refer you, I think with truth, to a distaste daily manifesting 
itself towards the pursuits of agriculture. Men seem to be 
pressing from the country to the town to engage in pursuits 
that promise more profit but less independence. Agriculture 
as it was the earliest, so is it the most honorable, free, and 
manly of all human avocations. "The first three men in the 



Addresses 19 

world," says Cowley, "were a gardener, a ploughman, and a 
grazier; and a plough in a field arable is the most noble and 
ancient arms." "Hate not laborious work," saith Ecclesiasti- 
cus, "neither Husbandry which the Most High hath ordained." 
There is no pursuit in life of equal importance, and there is 
certainly none so well calculated to foster the substantial 
virtues, and maintain a republic in its simplicity. It is the 
grand dependence of our country; and had we exhausted the 
riches of our extended and fertile soil, instead of pursuing 
the phantoms of wealth, we should never have been reduced to 
the humiliating necessity of depending upon foreigners for our 
bread. 

I have thus, fellow citizens, in compliance with an unex- 
pected request which I did not feel at liberty to disregard, — 
on a brief notice, and in the midst of pressing concerns which 
have allowed small opportunity for preparation, — endeavored 
briefly to bring into review some topics which I trust are not 
inappropriate to the occasion, however defectively they may 
have been presented. I have not dwelt, as is usual and as 
may have been anticipated, upon the incidents of a revolution 
the most remarkable that ever engaged the pen of history; 
nor sought to exhibit in glowing colors the deeds of those 
famous men whose names on such a day as this spontaneously 
crowd upon our memories. They needed not to be recapitu- 
lated, for they can never be neglected or forgotten. Far dis- 
tant be the day when it shall become necessary for freemen 
to depend upon the tongue of the orator to remind them of 
what is now the common prattle of infanc}^ and the theme of 
narrative old age. I have rather sought to exhibit that pater- 
nal simplicity and wisdom which adorned the every day life of 
those patriots to whom we owe our origin and our liberty. 
They are the traits which more immediately concern a peaceful 
nation ; and what they lack in brilliancy they compensate in 
usefulness. The deeds of war and the successful struggles of 
the oppressed, possess a more intense and exciting interest; 
they will serve, when we are called upon to defend our families 
and our possessions against the attacks of hostility, to nerve 



20 James Watson Williams 

and inspire us; but amid the pursuits of peaceful life, the 
peaceful virtues should be the theme of our reflections. And 
where shall we find them exhibited in greater perfection than 
in the lives of those whose good deeds we this day commemor- 
ate? If we seek to add to the glory of this republic, the crown 
of perpetual endurance ; to preserve in all their strength and 
freshness and purity the institutions of freedom ; to reach and 
maintain that exalted height in the scale of nations, which our 
fathers prophesied that their descendants should occupy ; — to 
that fountain of great examples which they have provided for 
our instruction let us constantly repair ; assured that the less 
we resemble them the more is the republic in danger. 



AN ORATION DELIVERED JULY 4TH, 1866, IN 
CHANCELLOR SQUARE, UTICA, N. Y. 

IN compliance with a national custom which, I regret to say, 
Fellow Citizens, has fallen away from its pristine univer- 
sality and enthusiasm of observance, we are assembled to 
commemorate a day which our forefathers, who signalized it 
by a memorable act, fondly anticipated would forever com- 
mand the respect and devotion of their posterity. It is never 
trite to say that, for moral grandeur, there are few such days 
in human history. We look back upon it, however, with dull 
contemplation and blurred memories, mindful rather of the 
prosperous and marvellous days which have succeeded it, than 
of the real import of the event that then loomed to amaze all 
civilized nations. Custom seems to have staled it, and each 
revolving anniversary to require an effort to honor it with 
patriotic decency. The renowned lips that should glorify it 
with eloquence are silent; the shows that should embellish it 
with a richness and magnificence significant of a warm, hearty, 
ungrudging national feeling, and of a grateful recognition of 
the prosperity and abundance which sprung from it, are too 
often paltry and barren ; and to a few only of the vast multi- 
tudes who owe all their public freedom, private ease, and 
national renown, to the spirit that animated and proclaimed 
the Declaration of Independence and sustained it to a trium- 
phant acknowledgment, is left the celebration, and apparently 
the remembrance, of the great Anniversary. One would think 
that later events which have not faded from the memory, and 
are hardly yet so long past as to become the subjects of 
memory, would quicken the dormant national spirit into a 
vital pulse in behalf of the chief of our public holidays, and 



2 2 James Watson Williams 

arouse a universal outbreak of jubilation on every return of it. 
I ought perhaps to except this particular festival from the 
general remark, but its truth is still evident, among other 
tokens of a torpid observance, from the circumstance that in 
a commimity like this, fruitful of spirit and talents, and not 
barren of men of mark, one who has no eminence of station, no 
reputation of eloquence, and no position of dignity to command 
attention, should be selected to utter the "brave words" of the 
occasion. 

I have not declined the compliment or the duty, simiply 
because a compliment should be acknowledged and a duty 
should be fulfilled, by even the humblest and most unpretend- 
ing; and the duty, in my judgment, properly falls to the lot of 
him who receives the compliment, unless he would unhand- 
somely impeach the good judgment of those whose province it is 
to choose, which my sense of decorum would not permit me to 
do. 

The ordinar}^ routine of a national holiday may by repeti- 
tion become dull and unexciting; but it would seem that 
among a stirring, ambitious, and wonderfully enterprising 
people, there must always be happening events enough to sup- 
ply a theme for the orator, which should tune his tongue to 
golden words and the ears of his listeners to rapt attention. 
The sequences of a remarkable epoch naturally reflect them- 
selves upon it, and either lighten or darken it as they are 
glorious or inglorious. When the Declaration of 1776 pro- 
pounded the axiom that "all men are created equal," it was 
not anticipated that the very people who declared it, should 
be themselves the only civilized people upon earth who should 
remain for nearly a century a conspicuous living protest 
against its truth. It is one of the glorious reflections that 
now lightens that day, that henceforward the axiom is practical 
as well as theoretical. The same Declaration propounded the 
further axiom that amongst the inalienable rights of man, 
wherewith his Creator endowed him, is " liberty " ; now a shin- 
ing truth, heretofore sadly obscured by the darkness of human 
bondage, which was one of the inglorious reflections that 



Addresses 23: 

dimmed the lustre of that day. We are, happily, no longer 
under a necessity of maintaining paradoxes or framing soph- 
isms imsatisfactory to our consciences, to reconcile our tradi- 
tional maxims of human rights with our practical disavowal of 
them. It is now no longer tolerable, as it heretofore might be, 
to stigmatize as "glittering generalities" those dicta which 
from our youth up we were taught to revere as substantial 
wisdom. What in the eye of a good conscience was always a 
stultifying blot, although the partisan political eye always saw 
it purblind -as through a cataract, now no longer mars the 
complete beauty and simplicity of our theory of govemm.ent, 
and can no longer darken or distort our politics. That it has 
been effaced with such lavish spilling of riches, blood, and life, 
is cause for grievous lamentation ; but that it was so speedily 
wiped out, and wiped out so thoroughly, is cause for great 
national joy, which may well be heartily indulged as part of 
the jubilation of this and every future anniversary; for now 
the immortal Declaration may be read without an elision or a 
blush. The problem so anxiously pondered for ninety years, 
of reconciling our system of slavery, which our forefathers 
were ashamed to name, with our proclamation of equality and 
liberty to all men under Heaven, and particularly to our own 
people ; a problem which has embarrassed and frightened our 
wisest statesmen and particularly him who penned the Declara- 
tion and trembled when he thought of bondage and remembered 
that God was just ; a problem that has perverted and corrupted 
our parties and sects, civil and religious; — has been consum- 
mately disposed of by a Providential solution, so sudden, so 
surprising, and so utter, that it can vex us and confound our 
politics no more forever. 

The late momentous and remarkable War of the Rebellion, 
less surprising in its daring inception, than in the wonderful 
display of spirit, martial power, and hidden resources both of 
patriotism and treason that it evoked, may be regarded par- 
ticularly as a vindication of the great truth of the Declaration 
of Independence as triumphant as the War of the Revolution 
was of the formal Declaration itself. That War of the 



24 James Watson Williams 

Revolution established rather the fact of a final severance from 
monarchical power, than the substance of the principles of 
the famous Declaration. The War of the Rebellion, by its 
■ side blow, rather than by its first intention, made a perpetual 
practical truth of equality and liberty. In seeking to preserve 
the unity of the government and thwart a pernicious frantic 
conspiracy, it, as it were casually and by incident, extinguished 
slavery, which it had not thought to touch, but had rather 
feared to touch as the Hydra of this Continent, which most 
of us were disposed to let slumber and even propitiate with 
questionable anodynes. It was a remarkable fortune of war, 
—that fatal side blow, — and a stroke as justifiable on all 
acknowledged principles of warfare as any other mode of crush- 
ing treachery and prostrating an enemy. The Constitution, 
indeed, had never contemplated, or provided for it; neither 
had it contemplated, or perhaps sufficiently provided for, such 
a monstrously conceived unfilial rebellion against itself. More 
doubt has been cast, with a show of reason, upon other acts of 
the military power of the government than upon this most right- 
eous and courageous one. Some usurpations of authority there 
likely were, not defensible on definite legal or constitutional 
principles. I do not justify these on any such principles, 
should I justify them on any; yet it is to be regarded that de- 
fined authority is not always competent to undefined emer- 
gencies. There is a latent dictatorship in every government. 
It leaps forth like a sword in a moment of imminent danger, 
but mainly reposes and rusts in its scabbard. It is the true 
"ultima ratio." The Romans legalized it and embodied it as 
the acknowledged supreme power of all earthly power, which 
for the time being was irresponsible, self-willed, and despotic. 
Short lived in action, it was ever prompt to be evoked, like a 
dread spirit, to save the republic and take care that it re- 
ceived no detriment. Constitutions are made for the normal 
state of society ; containing in themselves every provision for 
the common occasions of peace and war, but not elastic enough 
to meet all possible sudden occasions of either. They conceal 
also an abnormal force which betrays itself in swelling out and 



Addresses 25 

bursting the verbal bonds ingeniously framed to confine it. 
The state of war, especially of civil war, often develops its 
power. Martial law is the restrained, half-regulated exhibi- 
tion of it ; but its highest development is when every human 
element is in commotion, when chaos threatens, when laws are 
silent, and constitutions powerless ; and when through appre- 
hensions and through very fatigue of contention and strife, the 
popular sentiment suffers, rather than impowers, some man of 
will, strength, and wisdom to seize the helm and guide the 
ship into the nearest harbor. For the moment he is supreme ; 
none disputes his authority, although there may be no written 
warrant of it, although it may perforce overleap every written 
provision against it : if he so handle the rudder as to avoid both 
Scylla and Charybdis, the rock of tyranny and the gulf of an- 
archy, and the Maehlstrom of a perfect wreck, every breach 
of the constitution and the law is caulked by his success ; for 
the crew is too happy in bare salvation to criticize or condemn 
the stem, self-willed, wise management of the venturesome 
master. It is, however, an assumption of power with a halter 
round the throat, ready to strangle without mercy him who 
exhibits the least disposition to retain or exercise it a moment 
beyond the emergency that seemed to justify it. Glory at- 
tends his success: punishment his failure. It is a dread re- 
sponsibility, and only a dread occasion that tolerates it. 

If during a sedition or rebellion which threatens the life of 
the body politic, an occasional usurpation or doubtful exercise 
of power occur, the obvious effect of which is to save that life, 
or which is obviously resorted to for that single end, it must be 
regarded like a desperate operation in surgery, where either 
the wound or the operation must be fatal. The life is better 
than the limb ; the life of the constitution better than the par- 
ticular members of it. Constitutions political, like constitu- 
tions natural, must in times of high excitement and commotion, 
suffer some severe and distorting wrenches, and lose perhaps 
here or there a limb ; but it is better to go awry than to lack the 
power of going. No constitution ever long preserved its origi- 
nal integrity. Our own was changed before it had been five 



26 James Watson Williams 

years out of the cradle. The fact that itself provides a way 
for its amendment betrays a sagacious provision by its framers 
that constitutions are prone to defects, weaknesses and in- 
sufficiencies. The rubs of time and experiment will dislocate 
or wear out the best ordered machinery. When the Roman 
State could no longer go with a Monarchy, it adjusted itself to 
the grooves of a Republic ; so went, not without some serious 
frictions and jars, for five hundred years; and finally fell to 
pieces as a Monarchy again under the name of an Empire. 

The rebellion was the "crux experimenti," — the trial test, — • 
of our form of government. We had proved our ability to 
sustain ourselves against foreign aggression ; now we were 
to prove our ability to control and conquer ourselves. An in- 
ternal dissension not promptly met and completely subdued, 
is a fatal stab in the body politic. No wise parent will ever 
suffer one of his offspring to get the upper hand by obstinacy 
or force. He will first subdue and then conciliate him by 
cautious leniency. This requires self-control. He does not 
expect as an evidence of submission that the sufferer should 
complaisantly kiss the rod. That is a high effort of Christian 
humility which few Christian people ever attain to. He lays 
the rod aside when its present purpose is accomplished, and 
adds no superfluous aggravation by flourishing it provokingly 
in sight, as if no gradual amendment of conduct could be a 
trustworthy assurance that the discipline would be effectual 
without threatening more. He does not expect that forthwith 
on the ceasing of the chastisement, and while the stripes smart, 
smiles of satisfaction should succeed to the frowns of obstinacy ; 
but he prudently leaves to time and reflection the cooling of 
the rebellious blood, and quietly allows wounded pride and 
mortification to compose themselves, without ruffling taunts 
or further menace of authority, into the equable mood which 
confesses the propriety of the punishment and assures a rea- 
sonable submission. Such is the conduct that experienced 
statesmen, versed in human nature, will adopt towards rebel- 
lious citizens, and it is the better half of their victory to re- 
strain thenlselves to such a wise use of it. Says Lord Bacon, 



Addresses 27 

* ' to give moderate liberty for griefs and discontents to evapor- 
ate, so it be without too great insolency or bravery, is a safe 
way. For he that turneth the humors back, and maketh the 
wound bleed inwards, endangereth malign ulcers, and perni- 
cious imposthumations." 

The difficult part of a rebellion, like the cure of some dis- 
eases, is in the after treatment. In our peculiar government, 
which being sui generis cannot look to precedents, we must 
depend on our own wisdom, and knowledge of our people, and 
the continued favor of a protecting God whose evident benign 
interpositions we cannot as a nation sufficiently acknowledge, 
— ^to calm the agitated waters. We are not to forget that while 
we think we are dealing with States, we are dealing also with 
people and with human nature. An overbearing exercise of 
power, or an insolent show of it, will not be comfortably sub- 
mitted to by either. It will not do to confotind the loyal with 
the rebellious, because like the noted dog in the primer, they 
have been found in bad company ; and in every State there is 
likely to be more loyalty at bottom than is floating upon the 
surface ; for lo5^alty is sometimes overpowered and forced to 
sink, like the Nautilus, when the violence of the waves threat- 
ens destruction ; but when the rage of the tempest is passed, 
and the waters are calmed to safety, then, like the Nautilus, it 
rises again. We must not depress loyalty in our zeal to op- 
press traitors, nor make it an involimtary participant, by any 
indirection, in the penalties of rebellion. A loyal man may 
represent a treasonable population, but he will not therefore 
represent treason; it is not right nor politic to disavow him 
because of their infidelity. 

With the disappearance of slavery, a hitherto vital clause 
of the Constitution became lifeless ; but out of its ashes is re- 
vivified a representative element which while it is the off- 
spring of that decay is also the parent of increased power to 
the former slaveholding States. 

If there had been no slave population when the Constitu- 
tion was adopted, all the population of all the States would 
have constituted the basis of representation and taxation. It 



28 James Watson Williams 

was the first and foremost principle that inspired the revolt 
of the colonies, that taxation and representation should go to- 
gether. When the Constitution was debated, slaves were 
ranked amongst mules and horses, and it was with great con- 
tention that a slave was finally concluded to be equal to three 
fifths of a man, and was allowed to be estimated at that value 
in the basis of representation and taxation, so that two out of 
every five were in fact unrepresented and untaxed. There are 
no slaves now, which is just the ideal truth of the axiom of the 
Declaration of Independence, now for the first time made a 
real one in our history ; but the bare axiom seems to be still too 
strong for us. We are uneasy that the freedmen should be 
counted in the census a man for a whole man, like the rest of 
us, for a mere political reason. We are apprehensive that it 
will give the States which they occupy an increased influence 
in the affairs of government, and on our doctrine of com- 
pensations that influence should be diminished rather than 
increased. It is an influence that they have by no means de- 
manded in that way, and is rather forced upon them by cir- 
cumstances which they would willingly have avoided; and 
yet, on principle, all politics aside, it seems that it is an in- 
fluence that they are lawfully entitled to. They have the 
population ; and why should they not have the constitutional 
advantage of it? It will not do now to say that it is because 
they are black, any more than to say that they are resident 
foreigners. They are equivalent, color aside, for arithmetical 
computation in a census, to so much transatlantic population 
immigrating into those States and settling there. 

To avoid this necessary constitutional sequence of eman- 
cipation, it is proposed to amend the constitution in respect 
to the basis of representation. Yet this basis as it now stands 
is the broadest it is possible to have, and the most corre- 
sponding to the genius of that republican government which is 
guaranteed to all the States; because it excludes none from 
representation, but covers the whole population impartially 
and indiscriminately; and what is more, it covers the great 
principle which started our revolution, that taxation and rep- 



Addresses 29 

resentation should go together. If the right of suffrage were 
necessarily incident to the condition of a freedman, no amend- 
ment to the Constitution in this particular would probably 
be demanded. The question of suffrage is therefore inti- 
mately connected with this merely political aspect of the sub- 
ject, and that happens to be a question not opened by the 
Declaration, and left by the Constitution hitherto to the 
several States. 

Suffrage is a purely conventional, and therefore always a 
vexed, question. A right to it is not one of those elemental 
human rights which are natural or inalienable. From the 
nature of the case it must always be conventional in any wise 
system of representative government. We number idiots and 
lunatics in the periodical census of our representative popula- 
tion ; and yet they are notoriously incompetent persons to be 
trusted with the suffrage. We number women and children 
also; but deny them the privilege. We number all resident 
foreigners ; but until they are made competent, by a conven- 
tional law, they cannot exercise the suffrage. We number 
the blacks also; but they have never, except casually, been 
allowed the suffrage. Their case, therefore, differs in no re- 
spect from that of other large classes of our population ; and in 
point of principle no favor can be claimed for them above 
those neglected classes. That they should have the right to 
acquire the suffrage on some terms may not be unreasonable, 
and it has been conceded to them, here and there, upon easy 
qualifications. If the right exists upon any broad, moral 
theory of abstract justice, rather than upon the arbitrary one 
of political prudence, then it will be hard to say why wo- 
men and precocious children, who control their husbands and 
fathers, should not also have as direct a voice in controlling 
the State as freedmen, Chinamen and coolies. But men are 
not bom voters any more than they are born constables or 
governors, or than they are bom twenty-one years old. They 
are bom, however, black or white, with a clear right to work, 
which not being otherwise enumerated in the Declaration, is 
probably the "pursuit of happiness" ; a right which the man 



30 James Watson Williams 

of color may indisputably claim to be inalienable now, how- 
ever marketable it may have been among his late masters. 

In respect to the legal condition of the citizens of the States 
that fomented the rebellion, and their constitutional relations 
to the government, the logic of the case seems to be this : — 
several of the States assumed authority, absolute or reserved, 
to sever the Union of the States, which was the actual govern- 
ment of all. The remaining States adhered to the actual gov- 
ernment, and were that government ; and insisted that it was 
not the right of any State to dissolve it, and that it should not 
be dissolved, at least forcibly; and it never was dissolved. 
The seceding States incited a rebellion which was sanctioned 
by their ostensible State governments, as if, for that unlawful 
purpose, they lawfully represented the people and the power 
of those States. There were many of those people who did 
not concur in this assumption of authority, nor in anywise 
become voluntary parties to the rebellion. The rebellion was 
put down by the strong arm, as a riot or sedition might have 
been. Those engaged in it, voluntarily, became liable to the 
legal penalty of their crime. That penalty touches persons 
and not States, and may be inforced, modified, or wholly 
pardoned at the pleasure of the Executive power. The laying 
down of their arms was an acknowledgment of guilt, as well 
as a submission to the legal consequences of it. No general 
amnesty has been proclaimed, but large numbers of the less 
conspicuous have been pardoned. These, of course, have 
legally atoned for their guilt, are no longer answerable for it, 
and are fully restored to their civil X->osition by proper au- 
thority. They are, therefore, with the mass of those who 
remained confessedly loyal, entitled to the exercise of their civil 
rights. Among these is the right of representation and suf- 
frage. They may hold their elections, and choose their rep- 
resentatives as before. It is the right, no less than the duty 
of the legislative body, to scan their pretensions to member- 
ship there, and to enquire into the validity of their election, 
not in gross, but in detail. Each elected representative is 
entitled to have his particular claim adjudged upon its own 



Addresses 31 

merits. His loyalty may be questioned; the legality of liis 
credentials may be tested ; the right and authority of his con- 
stituents to elect may be investigated. If all these be in his 
favor, his right to membership cannot lawfully be made to de- 
pend on the right of his co-delegates. He may be loyal, — 
they may be disloyal ; he may in all respects be entitled to a 
seat, — they may have been irregularly chosen, and for that 
cause not entitled. The War of the Rebellion suspended, dur- 
ing its rage, the exercise of the usual modes of civil adminis- 
tration, but it abolished no government: it .suspended civil 
rights and remedies, but it did not extinguish them. The 
moment it ceased, the loyal men were theoretically, if not in 
fact, the State; and had the right to exercise the authority 
and represent the power of the State, and to reduce the chaos 
to what order they might, pursuing the constitutional modes 
of doing so. Such, in brief, is the position in which they now 
stand; their States in their normal constitutional condition; 
the loyal and absolved people entitled to all their rights as 
if there had been no rebellion; their representatives entitled 
to their seats in all legislative bodies, unless individually 
rejected upon the usual tests of title and competency as 
provided by the Constitution; each State an independent 
government owing fealty and obedience to the government 
of the Union, and as legal and constitutional an entity as 
ever. 

A future philosophical historian, it seems to me, will trace 
the rebellion, remotely, to the original vice of our civil organ- 
ization, which practically falsified our philosophy of human 
rights; mediately, to the sectional rivalries, antagonisms, and 
irritations, which sprung from that vice, and which worked 
themselves into party politics ; and, proximately, to the grow- 
ing disparity of the rival sections of the country in political 
influence and power; to a consciousness on one part of infe- 
rior general success and prosperity as contrasted with the 
growth and advancement of neighboring States whose system 
was one of more perfect freedom and enterprise, producing 
that Haman-like temper that makes a people as well as 



32 James Watson Williams 

individuals discontented and unhappy; and to a feeling, on 
the other part, that an exacting sectional minority had long 
enough controlled the legislation and the administration of 
the government, and that their power to do so was mainly 
owing to family w^ealth, ease, and devotion to political pur- 
suits, the results of a social economy which was deemed a 
standing infamy, and the more distasteful that it bred pride, 
insolence, and a domineering spirit. If it had not been for 
the burthen of slavery, which it was apparently more difficult 
to cast off, than custom had made it easy to carry, the prog- 
ress of both sections of the country would have been more 
equal and the causes of distrust and rivalry less developed. 

That burthen being providentially and unexpectedly 
thrown off, after a little time for the recovery of the senses to 
a perfect comprehension of the great relief, and the adapta- 
tion of the system to the new condition, the sufferers will begin 
to be conscious of the real impediment to their thrift, and hail 
new and promising avenues to a sure and w^holesome advance- 
ment. In common with the whole country, they need repose. 
We have all seen enough of the horrors and glories of war; 
now let us win the victories of peace. The fresh wounds 
should be permitted to unite by what the surgeons call the 
first intention, and not be festered to suppuration by strifes 
to gain or hold advantages, or by the jealousies and rivalries 
of parties or politicians. Let them so heal as to leave no 
broad, unsightly gaps witnessing to unskillful surgery, but 
only the slight cicatrix to mark a tender spot for tender hand- 
ling. We need repose not only politically but financially. 
Without it gold and paper will fly so far apart that it will soon 
be to be guessed which is the basis of the other, or whether 
one is within a computable distance of the other. Even the 
present transient divorce is threatening enough, but unless 
the parties are speedily reconciled it will become perpetual. 
With an enormous debt we are enormously extravagant, and 
it seems as if our legislators thought that five hundred millions 
of national taxes might be raised forever because in a year or 
two of enthusiasm they have been cheerfully borne. It is 



Addresses 33 

satisfactory to know that the country can do such things, 
but it is not pleasant to feel that they are becoming chronic. 

One good result of the War of the Rebellion is the proof it 
has given of the wonderful strength and resources of a nation 
which has long been taunted with extravagant boasting of its 
greatness. We have been charged with an insolent and pre- 
sumptuous spirit towards all the world, and it is a proper 
cause of glorying that we have displayed such valor and 
vigor as to command universal respect, and leave us at liberty 
to treat pride and reproaches with self-reliant indifference. 
We have shown a large and generous spirit, in war as well as 
in peace, a firm and growing courage in adverse circumstances, 
a liberality of blood and of purse both in the maintenance of 
our national life, and in the systemized and princely chari- 
ties that smooth the wrinkled front of war, which history 
cannot parallel. So far as martial prowess is in question this 
single nation has led into the field and into the waters, from 
its own farms, hamlets, towns and cities, springing like the 
dragon's teeth from the very soil, armies and navies which all 
the warlike nations of Europe can hardly surpass for numbers, 
and cannot equal for intelligence, activity, genius, a cultivated 
public spirit, and love of country; armies and navies too, 
which, as if to belie all past histor}^, disappeared, at the signal 
of leave, as magically as they sprang up, no man knew whither, 
to resume, unarmed and without a show of rioting or plunder, 
the very pursuits of peaceful life which they were as prompt 
to relinquish for their country as to fly back to for themselves. 
And here they are amongst us this day, — the remnants of five 
distinguished Oneida regiments, whom death and disease 
have spared, — wondering at the great events which their 
own eyes have seen as if in a vision, and happy in the suc- 
cess of contests which their patriotism prompted them to 
help on to victory. But those whom death and disease 
did not spare— where is the memory of them now? Where 
is the noble monument, piercing the skies and surmounted 
by the triumphant eagle gazing sunward and lofty, bearing 
in his beak our motto of "Excelsior"; and on which we see 



34 James Watson Williams 

the record of the men of Oneida who sacrificed their valiant 
lives on the battle fields of the south; of those who still 
live, maimed, crippled, diseased; of those who, surviving all 
dangers, displayed their patriotic earnestness and courage 
on many a plain now incarnadined with their own blood and 
the blood of their fallen compatriots? Where shall we find 
the thickly lettered tablets of marble or brass — to what 
majestic column affixed — which shall preserve in the grateful 
memory of succeeding generations the honored names of 
Wheelock, Jenkins, Bacon, Hunt, Buckingham, Throop, Cur- 
ran, and others of the dead, equally dear to local remembrance, 
and equally generous of their blood and life, but whom, for 
want of such merited records, I do not now recall? But when 
I remember what names of revolutionary fame are still left 
unblazoned, notwithstanding repeated resolves of Congresses 
and Legislatures; that the monument to brave General Her- 
kimer, voted more than half a century ago, still reposes in the 
quarry as quietly as the hero in his grave; that the tomb 
which private kindness erected to protect the honored remains 
of Steuben is all dilapidated, almost within a columbiad shot 
of this present standing place, unvisited and out of mind ; my 
lips refuse to utter a word of reproach that the Oneida Monu- 
ment Association has not accomplished within a year what 
Congresses and Legislatures have taken half a century to neg- 
lect; and console myself with the reflection of the Roman 
lyrist, that all these fallen brave have built for themselves, in 
the memories of all who respect patriotism and bravery, ' ' a 
monument more durable than brass." 

It lacks but a single decade of years to round the full period 
of a century since the Declaration of Lidependence was pro- 
claimed ; and who will venture at the threshold of that short 
decade to prognosticate the vast advancement which it will 
witness to fill the century? What other nation could at the 
end of a hundred years show such a gigantic growth and 
spread; so broad and yet so compact; without colonies and 
yet with universal commerce; mistress of all human inven- 
tions of science, art, and industry; with inexhaustible mines 



Addresses 35 

and lodes of gold and silver, of lead, merciiry, and copper, of 
coal and iron; with railways and telegraphs stretching from 
ocean to ocean, and almost from pole to pole; with all the 
means and resources of war and peace within its own bound- 
aries; with the most complete of practicable civil govern- 
ments; adorned with education, letters, and wealth; the 
press and the conscience free; and lacking nothing but the 
lapse of other centuries to make it venerable? But looking 
beyond that decade, when the turbulent waves of our late 
commotion shall have fully subsided into an undisturbed 
serenity, "methinks" in the grand words of Milton, "I see in 
my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a 
strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; 
methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, 
and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam " ; a 
beam, let us trust, of the brightest and most glov/ing national 
prosperity that ever shone upon so many myriads of freemen 
under one propitious undivided government. 



ADDRESS AT THE CABLE CELEBRATION IN UTICA, 
SEPTEMBER i, 1858 

FELLOW CITIZENS :— The event which we are so jubilantly 
assembled to honor, is one which, although it was within 
human power to accomplish, is almost above human power 
fitly to commemorate. It is one of those special and con- 
spicuous achievements of intellect, energ}^ ingenuity and bold- 
ness that surpass the skill of the tongue and the pen to laud 
and magnify. I feel as if it were almost presumptuous to 
make any attempt to say what would truly befit such an 
occasion. Inspiration prompted the songs of Moses and Mir- 
iam and David in honor of the great things which God had 
done for the people of Israel ; and nothing short of inspiration 
can sufficiently glorify the occasion of our present joy and 
triumph. 

When the same Israel fied from before Pharaoh and made 
that marvellous passage through the Red Sea, whose waters 
formed a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left, 
the direct interposition of God was manifest. Human agency 
had little to do with the result. It was a glorious salvation 
to them, and was followed by an equally inglorious destruction 
of their pursuers; but man's energy, skill and power did not 
plan, or prosecute, or compass the wonderful event. It was 
the sole work of God in His majesty and omnipotence. 

When Columbus persisted, in the face of the most vexatious 
and appalling discouragements, in cutting a path to a new 
world through a greater than the Red Sea, there was nothing 
more directly miraculous in it than could be compassed by 
man's own power of performing miracles. God was present 
and supporting His servant by the usual interposition of His 

36 



Addresses zi 

providence ; but there was no such manifest and vivid presence 
and display of Omnipotence as flashed out during the flight 
of His chosen people from the oppressions and the flesh-pots 
of Egypt to the terrors and the manna of the wilderness. 

So in respect to the gloriously consummated enterprise 
which has annihilated time and space between the two great 
worlds, one of which Columbus had the glory iinder God's 
guidance, of discovering and bringing into communication 
with the other, by the force of his genius and his personal 
characteristics of energy and persistence, and an ever unfailing 
confidence in the ultimate success of his cherished project. 
An indomitable will and purpose founded on a patient and 
intelligent study of facts and signs and theories, and a saga- 
cious deduction from them, accomplished for him what, in his 
age and circumstances, may be deemed a miracle of success. 

Contemplate the advancement of the world since his fortu- 
nate day. Observe particularly the strides which have been 
made in the art of navigation by human ingenuity and its 
studious application towards a mastery of the elements, from 
an uncertain dependence on the wind and the waves, to the 
triumph of steam over both; by which a voyage that cost 
Columbus many weary months can now be accomplished in 
a week. By the auspicious and sublime event which we are 
met to rejoice over, the same distance, for the purpose of 
transmitting thoughts and intelligence by a most mysterious 
and still inexplicable agency, is reduced to nothing. It is true, 
we can not now, and perhaps we can not ever, by this wonder- 
ful agency, transport ourselves or our products across the 
Atlantic ; but we can discharge our thoughts and words through 
three thousand miles of water and of land with the speed of 
lightning, making due abatements for the manual processes 
of recording and transcribing into the common languages of 
mankind, the communications that electricity conveys to and 
fro by conventional signals. What yesterday, or even this 
morning, transpired in London, or in Paris, or at The Hague, 
might be communicated to you this instant from this plat- 
form ; yet, but one month ago, there was no possible, or rather 



38 James Watson Williams 

it should be said, no existing channel of communication 'from 
those meridians which could convey to us any message that, 
by the time it reached us, had not already become stale, flat 
and unprofitable at the point from which it started. How- 
ever fresh it might seem to us, it was already corrupted there 
and its vitality gone forever. It would seem, if it may be said 
without irreverence, as if God's question to Job were now 
affirmatively answered: ''Canst thou send lightnings that they 
may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?" 

It is gratifying to contemplate, further, the aid which the 
talents, ingenuity and enterprise of our own countrymen have 
from time to time contributed towards the completion and 
enjoyment of the accomplished fact which we now commem- 
orate. It was Franklin who first audaciously, but gently, 
seduced the lightning from the skies by his silken cords of 
attraction, and made it as playful and obedient as the toy 
that drew it down. It was Fulton who subdued the mighty 
power of steam, and on the waters of our own Hudson trained 
it to the purposes of navigation. It was Morse who tamed 
the lightning more efficiently than Franklin did, and on the 
same Atlantic which now transmits, by his own contrivances, 
constant tributes to his fame, devised the means of making 
it subservient to the practical uses of man, as the other de- 
fended man from its violence. It was he who taught it to 
speak in a still small voice, instead of the appalling voice of 
thunder, and to record its whisperings from one end of the 
earth to the other. It was Maury who picked out from the 
vast profound of the Atlantic the plain of the ocean-bed that 
combined the least depth, and the most uniformity of surface, 
with the least distance from the new world to the old. It was 
Berryman, who in the Arctic, verified by actual soundings, the 
existence of that very plain. It was Browne who invented 
the instruments necessary and efficient for making those 
soundings. It was Morse again who suggested, and it was 
Field who, like a second Columbus, energetically prosecuted 
to success, in the face of dangers, repeated failures, and the 
despondency of other men's hearts, the audacious enterprise 



Addresses 39 

of an electrical connection between America and Europe. It 
was Everett whose mechanical and engineering talents pro- 
vided the effective machinery for laying the magic line which 
now connects the hemispheres. It is Hughes to whom we 
look for the most perfect means of passing and recording the 
messages that are henceforth to flash intelligence from shore 
to shore, illuminating, not — as the lightning does — a little 
space here and there, but the whole world at once. 

Nor should we forget the devotion of Hudson and his sub- 
ordinates of the Niagara, and their intrepid perseverance and 
activity which so largely contributed to this international 
success ; and may we forever remember, to his honor and the 
honor of our navy, that he and they had the grace and true 
Christian manliness, on the happy termination of their 
hazards, to fall down and praise the great God who had 
safely conducted them to the haven where they would be, and 
crowned their labors with such a signal glory. 

But the glory is not wholly theirs and ours. It is divided, 
by a singular providence, with a people from which this people, 
with the help of men now living, severed themselves by vio- 
lence and arms. In some respects the severance was un- 
natural; and it has been kept up, in feeling at least, and quite 
as unnaturally, until good sense and a common interest have 
predominated, and we have united in cherishing mutual rela- 
tions of amity and commerce, which we have now happily 
corded and cabled together by a seven-fold ligament, which 
we trust may never suffer any "solution of continuity," nor 
any defect of insulation. 

Our British allies in the great enterprise contributed a large 
portion of the pecuniary means, three out of four of the ves- 
sels, the manufacture of the cable laid, and a good proportion 
of the skill and efficiency engaged in the whole work. They 
also contributed the service of the Porcupine steamer to ex- 
plore the depths and mysteries of Trinity Bay and to pilot the 
Niagara, with its part of the electric coil, to its place of final 
deposit, The officers and subordinates of the Agamemnon, 
the Valorous and the Gorgon, of the British Queen's Navy, as 



40 James Watson Williams 

well as the men of science and engineers attached to the ex- 
pedition, can never be omitted in any ascription of praise for 
the good conduct which, in despite of reverses and many most 
imminent dangers, enabled the common efforts of all to solve, 
satisfactorily, a great problem, which has stirred the minds 
and sympathies of all civilized men. 

The submerged Atlantic cable is the result of manifold ex- 
periments, deductions, inventions and discoveries in science 
and art, which, considered separately, are almost as wonderful 
as the final success of their combined application. Think how 
many lives have been exhausted, what ingenuity has been 
taxed, what empirical theories have been laboriously matured 
and practically verified, what astonishing discoveries have 
been made in the various arts and sciences, all of which have 
been directly or remotely subsidiary to the accomplishment 
of this single enterprise. The occult and mysterious powers 
of nature have been subjected to human experiment and 
scrutiny for the purpose, if not of wresting their secrets, at 
least of applying their forces to the uses of man. Electricity 
and steam have been trained into governable and docile mo- 
tive powers; the most complex and beautiful of mechanical 
inventions have harnessed them in, and subdued their mighty 
and terrible energies to the control of almost the weakest 
human intellect. The genius, study and unintermitted life- 
long labors of astronomers, of mathematicians, of electricians, 
of chemists, of engineers, and of mechanicians, have all been 
contributory to the grand consummation of an experiment 
which proves the practicability of girdling the earth, in one 
way and another, more successfully than Ariel could, with an 
electric power controllable by man — that same power which in 
its freedom, its might, and its awful sublimity, is controllable 
by God alone. 

For the ultimate success of this remarkable experiment, it 
was to be considered that although on land great distances 
could be electrically traversed with instantaneous speed, by 
the aid of relays of electrical power, no such auxiliaries could 
be provided over two thousand miles of tempestuous seas, 



Addresses 41 

because there could be no fixed stations for the reception and 
repetition of messages. It was therefore necessary to know 
whether an electric force sufficient to communicate intelligible 
signals, with sufficient rapidity, could be brought to bear 
through two thousand miles of wire. Should that happen on 
land, would it also succeed at the bottom, and under the 
weight, of the great ocean? Then whereabouts in the great 
ocean could the transmitting wire be most safely and econ- 
omically submerged? What track offered the shortest dis- 
tance, the shallowest depths, the securest submarine grounds, 
the slightest currents, and the best terminal points for com- 
munication with existing or probable land lines of telegraph 
wires? What form and composition of Cable would combine 
the least ponderousness, with adequate strength to maintain 
lasting continuity, adequate protection to insure lasting in- 
sulation, and adequate flexibility to be coiled and uncoiled, 
without disastrous knot or kink, so as to be readily and safely 
deposited through two miles' depth of turbulent and tempest- 
tossed waters? How should it be laid? By one vessel 
charged with the whole Cable and the whole work, and starting 
from one land terminus to the other; or by two or more ves- 
sels dividing the Cable and the work; and then should they 
both or all weigh anchor simultaneously and accompany each 
other, or should each start from a different terminus and meet 
in mid-ocean, or should they rendezvous in mid -ocean and 
thence each seek its own terminus? With what machinery 
should the immense coil of Cable be paid out so as to regulate 
its strain upon its own strength, and its strain upon the ves- 
sels carrying it, and so as to reach a sure resting place at the 
very bottom, without dangling from peak to peak of sub- 
marine rocks, hills and mountains, and severing its continuity 
by abrasions? 

Here were questions to be solved (and there were many 
besides) that tasked the utmost powers of human ingenuity 
and calculation, and in their ultimate solution they demanded 
aid from all the garnered experience in physical science and 
mechanical art and inventions from the time of Tubal Cain to 



42 James Watson Williams 

this day. They also demanded experiments and contrivances, 
before untried and uninvented, for their full solution. In 
short, the event which we this day commemorate was the 
only full practical answer. 

It would be difficult to explain here, without tediousness, 
the way in which all these problems were theoretically dis- 
posed of. As I just said, the result has practically disposed 
of them; perhaps not in the most absolutely satisfactory 
manner, but in a manner satisfactory, as the lawyers say, to 
a common intent. The end has been achieved. The expe- 
rience already gained, the present use and working of the 
wires, the further experiments to be made, and the various 
inventions and tests which will doubtless be applied by in- 
genious and experienced chemists and electricians, to obtain 
the most efficient control of the electric power for signaling 
and recording m.essages, will soon, if not immediately, set all 
doubts at rest. 

The particular route finally chosen for the laying of the 
Cable, is the one which the laborious and ingenious deductions 
of Lieutenant Maury, from a vast multitude of nautical reports 
and observations, satisfied him was not only the shortest from 
land to land, but that it was at the same time the shallowest, 
and likely to be the most free of any from those disturbances 
that might obstruct both the laying and working of telegraphic 
wires. The accuracy of his deductions was subsequently 
verified by the deep sea soundings made by Lieutenant Berry- 
man, under the direction of Professor Bache (the superin- 
tendent of the coast survey, and a descendant of Franklin) , 
in the vessel Arctic, with the aid of Lieutenant Brooke's in- 
genious apparatus for sounding great depths and fetching up 
specimens of the oceanic sub -stratum. The soundings fixed a 
depth of about two miles down to the singular sub-oceanic 
ridge or plain, extending from Newfoundland to Ireland, on 
which the Cable now reposes ; while they established also the 
fact that at a little distance on each side of it, there was a 
depth of about four miles to the bottom ; thus verifying, in a 
remarkable manner, the great accuracy of Lieutenant Maury's 



Addresses 43 

closet inferences from a mass of log-books and other scattered 
nautical information. To him, therefore, and to those who 
helped him to his materials for observation, and to the veri- 
fication of his deductions, is due the credit of fixing the best 
natural line for the Cable. 

It happened that both ends of this route across the Atlantic 
must terminate at points not within our jurisdiction and con- 
trol, and both of them within the jurisdiction and control of 
the sovereign of Great Britain. That our government should 
have been somewhat reluctant to send its best war steamer, 
with its officers and men, for an uncertain time, and to pay a 
considerable annual subsidy besides, in aid of a telegraphic 
enterprise which nature and science dictated should have both 
its accessible ends laid on foreign soil and under foreign con- 
trol, is not very singular, when we reflect how selfish and grasp- 
ing statesmanship is apt to be. It always wants to handle at 
least one end of the rope, and prefers both. No wonder that 
Field should have been advised to hide his audacious head, 
fruitful of energetic plans, in some obscure purlieus of Wash- 
ington, so that the friends of his project might not be em- 
barrassed by his obnoxious presence, and his suspicious 
personal solicitations of public aid. It was natural enough for 
Congress to reflect that in times of national hostility, both 
ends of the great line of electric communication would be 
within the control of a possible enemy ; of a nation with which 
we had already twice been engaged in severe encounters, and 
with which we had still some questions to adjust, now happily 
adjusted. 

It is a gratifying example of international courtesy and 
magnanimity that, all doubts waived, two powerful nations, 
able to hold the world in their hands, should have so cordially 
concurred as Great Britain and this Republic have, from first 
to last, with combined determination and energ}^, in the 
prosecution and consummation of an undertaking the pecun- 
iary hazards and profits of which are private, while the great 
results are universal. It augurs well for the peace and unity 
of mankind that the Lion and the Eagle dwell together, and 



44 James Watson Williams 

for the diffusion and advancement of science and of art that 
there should have been such a free and Hberal co-operation to 
effect a purpose which opens the world to scientific and me- 
chanical experiments, the casual effects and ultimate ends of 
which no man can foresee or appreciate. Great questions are 
yet to be solved which require universal and instant inter- 
communication for their solution ; and wits will now be set to 
work by the vibrations of the new electric cord which have 
heretofore found no field ample enough to excite or exhaust 
their powers. 

Much as is to be anticipated for the advancement of science 
and art as a sequence of this successful experiment, which 
must necessarily end in connecting all the civilized parts of 
the earth by wire and cable, its practical advantages to man- 
kind in what may be deemed by many as matters of more im- 
mediate concern, should be considered. The question is daily 
asked, "Of what use, compared with its great expense of time, 
labor and money, can the Atlantic cable be? How is it im- 
portant that we should receive or send news in an hour or two, 
rather than in a week or two, when we can receive or send 
nothing else more promptly than we could before? " 

Such questions can not be fully answered until time and 
experience answer them. They may be partly answered, how- 
ever, with sufficient distinctness and satisfaction. The first 
message of news, properly so called, after the news from 
Valentia Bay announcing the successful completion of the 
work of laying and securing the cable there, was the announce- 
ment here, almost simultaneously with its announcement in 
England, of the opening to the intercourse of all nations, and 
to the introduction of Christianity, of a Pagan country, with 
a vast population, that with a singular policy, and an equally 
singular pertinacity in adhering to it, has for hundreds of 
years secluded itself from a general intercourse with the rest 
of the world. In a commercial view, the importance to this 
country of knowing as soon as England did of the occurrence 
of such an event (which we should not have known so soon as 
we did by a week or more but for the promptness of the sub- 



Addresses 45 

merged lightning) may possibly be estimated by a sum that 
would pay a year's income on the cost of laying the cable. A 
free admission for trade and commerce to the immense market 
of China, is a great opportunity of which we of this country 
desire to get the earliest advantage. A week's delay in re- 
ceiving the news of it, would give England a fortnight's start 
of us in dispatching those articles of commerce which China 
demands, and some of which we are as capable of supplying 
to her needs as England is, and can possibly sell in the Chinese 
market cheaper than she can. Our merchant adventurers, 
who have already dispatched cargoes to the ports of China, 
will probably dismiss all doubts as to the value to commerce 
of the great Cable, when the profits of their ventures are 
realized. If we can know as soon as England does the changes 
in the value of marketable products in any country, that we 
can supply as readily and advantageously as she can, that 
simultaneous knowledge puts us on an equal footing with her 
in a competition for commercial gains. Commercial men will 
fully appreciate the vast benefit that such prompt intelligence 
as the electric messenger has already proved itself able to 
transmit will confer upon them, and indirectly upon all classes 
of the community. A week is often a very important period 
in the transactions of commerce, and even a moment is of ac- 
coimt. To-day a cargo of cotton or of wheat may find a profit- 
able market; to-morrow it may prove a loss. Every triumph 
we can gain over time and space, whether by steam or by 
electricity, or by whatever other agency God suffers us to con- 
trol to our uses, is an immediate and certain benefit to the 
race, and in that aspect of it no man should doubt that among 
the agencies that tend to human advancement and happiness, 
the transmission of electric messages wherever a wire can be 
suspended or a cable laid, is not the least. 

An ingenious fellow citizen, the superintendent of our 
principal telegraphic line, has embellished our jubilant display 
with a series of symbols illustrative of the various modes in 
use from time to time for communicating intelligence. He 
very properly begins the series with Noah's dove, which was 



46 James Watson Williams 

the progenitress of a host of messengers that until the inven- 
tion of gunpowder could not be excelled for speed, and not until 
the invention of electric telegraphs could any written intel- 
ligence pass by any other mode of communication with equal 
celerity. A carrier pigeon, with a letter under its wing, could 
equal if not outstrip the velocity of the railway locomotive; 
but after centuries of competition man has devised in the 
electric wire a speedier and surer messenger. 

The second symbol in the series represents the Celtic sig- 
nal, which was by fire or light ; but it must have been invented 
long before the Celts or the Highlanders figured in history ; for 
it was the signal by which Hero apprised her lover of her 
presence at their usual rendezvous, and guided him in his 
nightly swimmings across the Hellespont, until such time as 
he was unfortunately submerged where no telegraphic mes- 
senger lay to give speedy information of the sad extinguish- 
ment of his love and his life. 

Sir Walter Scott has vividly described the Celtic signal — 
the cross of fire — and its efficiency in rousing to arms and 
battle the clans of the Highlands : 

"Fast as the fatal symbol flies, 
In arms the huts and hamlets rise ; 
From winding glen, from upland brown, 
They poured each hardy tenant down ; 
Nor slacked the messenger his pace ; 
He showed the sign, he named the place. 
And pressing forward like the wind, 
Left clamor and surprise behind. 
The fisherman forsook the strand. 
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand; 
With changed cheer the mower blithe, 
Left in the half cut swath the scythe ; 
The herds without a keeper strayed. 
The plow was in mid-furrow stayed, 
The falc'ner toss'd his hawk away, 
The hunter left the stag at bay; 
Prompt at the signal of alarms, 
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms." 



Addresses 47 

Several of these symbolic designs partake of a local char- 
acter, and on such an occasion as this it is proper that we 
should not overlook or forget in our enthusiasm for a grand 
event, affecting the intercourse of the whole world, the part 
which our own locality has contributed toward the spread of 
that intercourse. Much, it may be said with no unbecoming 
pride, have our progenitors and some of their associates and 
successors who are now present, done towards accomplish- 
ing it. 

I well remember the late Jason Parker, as a boy may re- 
member a genial and kind-hearted neighbor, who allowed him 
to make free with his orchard, and with the good fare pro- 
vided by an estimable wife, who had a very exact apprecia- 
tion of the appetites and tastes of children — her neighbors' as 
well as her own — and well knew how to combine the useful 
with the sweet. Years ago, when this city was hardly a ham- 
let, Mr. Parker undertook to diffuse intelligence by carrying 
the mails between this place and Albany. With character- 
istic modesty, and above all the show and pretension which 
he might have been warranted by his position as a government 
subordinate to indulge, he bestowed these important mails, 
protected by a bit of brown paper, in his pocket. In the 
course of human progress and the advance of intercommunica- 
tion by letters and newspapers, saddle-bags became necessary 
auxiliaries to the pocket. But even this capacious addition 
to his conveniences, soon proved inadequate to the magnitude 
of his trust; and he was gradually inforced to double and 
quadruple his force of horse, wagon, and coach power, until a 
one man power was incapable of managing the vast concern. 
In this emergency he called in the aid of men whom we daily 
see about us, and recognize as men of energy and the cordial 
promoters of all useful enterprises. He and they set up the 
first Telegraph line I ever heard of, in the shape of four-horse 
coaches limited to nine insides, and as many outsides as could 
bribe the driver. This telegraph communicated signals 
through the medium of passengers and mails, at the then un- 
precedented rate of six miles an hour. It was a lamentable 



4^ James Watson Williams 

falling off from the velocity of the first recorded dispatch 
brought by the dove to Noah; nor did it equal the dispatch 
of railways, which Parker did not live to see invented to over- 
turn his favorite system; nor the dispatch of electricity, 
which he only knew by observing how quickly the thunder 
responded to the glatice of the lightning in those early days, 
when lightning and thunder were still untrained and un- 
harnessed, and sharper and quicker, more vivid and more 
resonant than they are now. 

Some of Mr. Parker's associates and successors are mem- 
orably associated with another symbol. The second line of 
electric land telegraph that was ever set up in this country, if 
my memory is right, was mainly due to their enterprise, and 
now occupies the ground formerly traversed by the four-horse 
telegraph of Parker. It would be suitable to the occasion, 
had time been allowed for a proper study of the subject, to 
present to you some history of the origin and advancement of 
both land and marine telegraphs; but to do so satisfactorily 
would involve investigations in the widest fields of science and 
invention, and a laborious gathering of scattered fragments of 
information from ponderous volumes and fleeting newspapers, 
demanding patience and application unsuited to a spontaneous 
and extemporaneous jubilee. 

Still another of the symbols I have alluded to, is commem- 
orative of an enterprise in which some of our citizens are at 
this moment engaged — an overland mail route to the Pacific 
Ocean. That the end will be accomplished is not to be 
doubted; and it would hardly be a marvel if those who are 
principally concerned in its success should bring with them 
on their return from the Pacific coast the hither end of a tele- 
graphic wire duly hitched to their several stations, and con- 
necting St. Louis with the terminus of a submarine cable to 
be laid next year, or sooner, through the Pacific to the great 
Central Flowery Land, whose monosyllabic language was ap- 
parently designed from all antiquity for the convenience of 
telegraphy. 

To bind the world together by a concentration of the mani- 



Addresses 49 

fold scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions and arts 
contributed from all quarters of it, and through all time, in a 
simple cord that throbs instantaneous pulses of intelligence to 
every part, is an achievement that will not only exalt and 
glorify those who have accomplished it, but should be hailed 
with joyful acclamations by the whole earth and all the in- 
habitants thereof. We have spontaneously and heartily con- 
tributed our offering to the general jubilee; and in behalf 
of all who are interested in the remarkable event, I con- 
gratulate you upon its success. It foretokens a day of uni- 
versal harmony, when the nations of the earth shall not learn 
war any more; when all tongues and kindreds and people 
shall loudly proclaim what the quiet messenger that is now 
inaugurated has just whispered to us from beyond the waters, 
"on earth peace; good will towards men." 



ON TEMPERANCE. 

PERHAPS enough has already been said, Mr. President, 
within the last two or three years, upon the subjects in- 
volved in the resolutions before us, to settle. all minds that 
take an interest in them into a decided opinion on one side or 
the other. For my own part I confess, that discussion, so far 
from unfixing the notions I have always entertained since the 
question of modified or total abstinence was first agitated, has 
only served to fix them the more strongly. I am now, more 
clearly than ever, of the opinion, and every day's experience 
confirms it, that the pledge which has crowned the efforts of 
the temperate with such distinguished success, is the only 
general pledge that could have effected the object. But as it 
is of the greatest importance that public sentiment should be 
correctly guided, and as every man's views may have their 
weight in that respect, I hope I may be pardoned, if, with the 
humility of Elihu of old, " I also show mine opinion." It was 
a very sensible remark, Sir, of the same Elihu, that "great 
men are not always wise." If they had been, we should not 
probably have witnessed that misdirection of effort which has 
caused so much distrust and distraction amongst the friends 
of the cause of temperance. But there is a spurious sort of 
wisdom — a wisdom above what is written ; and misled by its 
false lights those who have been looked up to as the prominent 
leaders in this great reform, appear to have wandered abroad, 
like the philosophic vagabond of Goldsmith, "seeking after 
novelty and losing ' ' — not exactly ' ' content ' ' — but what is of 
far more general concern — weight and influence. If the old 
pledge had been adhered to and no novel questions raised 
respecting it, instead of .the distraction of views which has 

50 



Addresses 51 

paralyzed our efforts, we should still present the irresistible 
argument that unanimity in a cause always exhibits. But 
unfortunately, zeal has effervesced to the extinguishment of 
prudent counsels; and we are now almost in the situation of 
a household divided against itself. It is evident to every man 
that we hardly stand. 

Let us look a little. Sir, into the history of this Temperance 
Reformation, and trace the footsteps of those who led the way 
in it. — ^An excessive indulgence in ardent spirits was un- 
doubtedly the prevalent vice of our countrymen. To erect 
some salutary barrier against this indulgence, and check the 
evils with which it threatened to overwhelm us, a pledge was 
suggested, simple in its terms and personal in its effect, which 
laid a prostrating blow at the vice that was spreading itself in 
such noxious luxuriance. The contest was begun with drunk- 
enness, and we can well remember that it was long a contest 
against most fearful odds. To secure a victory it was found 
that a proscription was necessary — not of all that could in- 
toxicate — but of all that was the common and usual means 
of intoxication. To banish these was thought a sufficient 
triumph. 

But, Sir, while we were in the career of victory — in that 
spirit of improvement for which the present age so modestly 
and so lavishly commends itself — (I hope. Sir, posterity may 
not discover that we have really taken some sad steps 
backward!) — in that spirit of improvement, the pledge was dis- 
covered to have become to a certain extent ineffectual; — pre- 
cisely, I suppose, to the same extent that it had become old 
and common. It is the reproach. Sir, of this unstable genera- 
tion that we are constantly bent on discovering what Solomon 
in his day admitted to be past searching for — some new thing 
under the Sun. Therefore there must be a new pledge and a 
new contest also ; for whereas we had hitherto been contending 
with a gross vice, drunkenness; we are now desired to enlist 
against a mere element, alcohol. 

Sir, I appeal with confidence to every man who is ac- 
quainted with the subject, and who thinks with candor, when 



52 James Watson Williams 

I assert that no cause was ever more prosperous, or more 
likely to become universal, up to the time of this change of 
hostilities, than the cause of temperance. It was a popular 
cause, for the moderation and prudence with which it had 
been conducted ; and the benign results it was accomplishing, 
had won all hearts to favor it. It was a cause that knew no 
parties within itself, and no distinction of parties externally. 
It had for its foundation a principle which met with almost 
imiversal commendation ; — which while it aimed directly at 
the extinguishment of a general vice, was not so exclusive in 
its character as to leave no room for the exercise of uncon- 
strained individual virtue. It sought by gentle means to 
rectify a gross error which public opinion, if it had not sanc- 
tioned, had overlooked — not to restrict men to a path so narrow 
that not to deviate was almost impossible, and then to chide 
them for a false step aside. The constraint of moderation, 
Sir, is one thing — the constraint of exclusion is another; and 
while the one is always certain to be a virtue, it is frequently 
to be suspected that the other is at least a weakness. 

It is a truth, Mr. President, not to be concealed, that since 
the autumn of 1833 when, in this very spot, the State Tem- 
perance Convention began seriously to agitate the question of 
total abstinence from all that can intoxicate, the cause of tem- 
perance has been gradually subsiding — in this region at least 
— into quiet and apathy. What was at that time perhaps 
mere prophecy has already become sad experience. We were 
forewarned that by tampering with " the pledge we should 
stagger tl;e minds of multitudes who regarded our past efforts 
with approbation, but who thenceforth would begin to look 
upon the future with distrust. And is not the event so, Mr. 
President? Have we not observed with pain that zeal has 
far outstripped discretion? That a certain good has been 
sacrificed in the pursuit of an uncertain better? — Never, to my 
mind, was there a more forcible illustration of the truth of that 
description of zeal which the venerable Hooker has given in 
one of the books of his Ecclesiastical Polity. It is as applicable 
in its general outlines to the subject in hand as it is to religion 



Addresses 53 

■ — ^altho' religious zeal is what it was designed to portray. — 
"Zeal, unless it be rightly guided, when it endeavoreth most 
busily to please God, forceth upon him those unreasonable 
offices which please him not. For which cause if they who this 
way swerve be compared with such sincere, sound, and dis- 
creet as Abraham was in matter of Religion; the service of 
the one is like unto Flattery, the other like the faithful sedu- 
lity of Friendship. Zeal, except it be ordered aright, when it 
bendeth itself unto conflict with things either in deed, or but 
imagined to be opposite unto religion, useth the razor many 
times with such eagerness that the very life of Religion itself 
is thereby hazarded ; through hatred of tares, the corn in the 
field of God is plucked up. So that zeal needeth both ways a 
sober guide." In this cause. Sir, I fear this sober guide has 
been most sadly wanting, or its admonitions most sadly un- 
heeded. The razor has truly been used with such eagerness 
that the life of the cause has not only been hazarded, but as 
it were, let out; and in our anxiety to clear the field of its 
tares, we are making pitiful havoc amongst the corn also. 

The tendency of this ill directed zeal in one particular to 
which I will call your attention, is of a character to sicken one 
with this machinery of associations to bring about a reform, 
and almost makes a man blush for those with whom he is 
associated. The friends of total abstinence, in order to cover 
the whole ground, have found themselves compelled to tread 
on ground that is holy; and we have seen things spiritual 
strangely, I had almost said profanely, mingled with things 
temporal, in some of the discussions on this subject. It was 
evident that an unqualified pledge involved the abandonment 
of the use of one of the elements of a sacred ordinance; an 
element which we have the authority of Scripture for saying 
has been, even in that holy rite, most shamefully prostituted 
to sensual indulgence; and we have therefore further wit- 
nessed a willingness on the part of some to violate an express 
injunction of Sacred Writ, in order to carry out a principle! 
Sir, are not the men who are ready to make such a sacrifice of 
their obedience, to be distrusted in point of discretion? Are 



54 James Watson Williams 

they the proper men to conciliate a gainsaying and hostile 
world to the object we have in view? Are they not rather the 
men who in truth will be found, unconsciously I doubt not to 
themselves, the greatest obstacles to the success of the cause? 
— I remember to have read that amongst the earliest heretics 
that received the condemnation of the Christian world was a 
sect called the Hydroparastatac , who abolished wine from the 
Eucharist and substituted water. I did not expect that a 
sect so soon forgotten, would again have arisen to trouble the 
world, and distract a good cause, with controversies; and I 
can only hope that the modem Hydroparastatac may meet 
with the same disfavor that overwhelmed their forefathers 
of sixteen hundred years ago. 

One would naturally suppose, Mr. President, that those 
who are ready to go to such a length as this, would have left 
no room in their pledge for doubt or equivocation. But, 
sweeping as it is, it does not, after all, cover the whole ground. 
It leaves more stones to turn — room for further agitation and 
division — for- controversy, and for improvement. It is not 
beverages only that intoxicate; and though all these be ex- 
cluded, from alcohol to coffee, the pledge is still incomplete. 
Opium intoxicates; and many an ingenious man has taken 
refuge there when all other resorts were forbidden. Tobacco 
intoxicates; but there is a potent charm and spirit in the 
weed that not all the enchantments of total abstinence can 
exorcise. 

In my opinion, Sir, the merit of our present pledge con- 
sists in this: it is emphatically a pledge for the many; that 
of total abstinence, though designed to be a pledge for all, 
will be found practically to be a pledge for the feiv. While 
our present pledge defines distinctly the class of intoxicating 
drinks, which, from their greater power of mischief, we all 
unite in proscribing, it is still a temperance pledge, exclusive, 
it is true, as to a most obnoxious class of beverages, but only 
restrictive of excess as to the rest. Certainly every man who 
signs it will deem himself bound to temperance in all respects — 
but what is temperance? It is not utter abstinence surely. 



Addresses 55 

The very term imports a use of the creatures of God's bounty; 
so to use, however, as not to abuse, and such to use as may be 
used moderately without injury. "Wine" says the son of 
Sirach, a wiser man perhaps than any of this wise generation, 
"wine is as good as life to a man if it be drunk moderately.'' 
Moderation, Sir, implies restraint, and not exclusion. And as 
good a man as any of us, the saintly George Herbert, whose 
pure and modest life was a practical illustration of his pure 
doctrines, never thought of that rigid abstemiousness which 
is now sought to be inculcated. His advice is only 

"Drink not the third glass; which thou canst not tame i 

When once it is within thee; but before 
May'st rule it as thou list and pour the shame 
Which it would pour on thee upon the floor. 

' ' Stay at the third glass : if thou lose thy hold 

Then thou art modest, and the wine grows bold. 

If reason move not gallants, quit the room. 

(All in a shipwreck shift their several way.) 
Let not a common ruin thee entomb. 

Be not a heast in courtesy — but stay — 
Stay at the third cup, or forego the place." 

The Scriptures on this point teach us the true medium — 
for while excessive indulgence is denounced, moderate enjoy- 
ment is nowhere forbidden, but everywhere allowed. The use 
of the boimties of Heaven is freely permitted; but the abuse 
of them is threatened with the severest penalties of God's dis- 
pleasure. Strong drink is nevertheless continually repro- 
bated; but wine never, except in excess. Shall we then 
impose upon ourselves further restrictions than inspiration has 
dictated or required; or resort to the prohibitions of the 
Alcoran to make good the oversights and deficiencies of the 
Bible? 

The truth is, Sir, "In medio tutissimus ibis" — You go 



56 James Watson Williams 

safest betwixt extremes — is one of the best and most pruden- 
tial maxims of action that the experience of the past has con- 
firmed. In individual cases it may not always be applicable, 
and arguing from these we are apt to be misled ; but in social 
affairs it is a precept of inestimable value, and founded upon 
that knowledge of the world which is only to be attained by 
those who mingle constantly with it. A desire to reduce ab- 
stract propositions, of which nobody denies the truth, into 
every day practice, is an egregious failing of the age; and 
threatens in its results to vitiate much that is good and des- 
troy much that is valuable. It has already, on many ques- 
tions, excited doubt, when doubt is danger; and unfixed 
opinions, when instability is ruin. 

I hope to be indulged. Sir, a moment longer while I ex- 
amine the resolution submitted for our consideration by the 
Executive Committee. It consists of a recommendation and 
an opinion. The recommendation I cannot agree to, because 
it either involves the whole principle against which I contend, 
or else convicts us of a manifest inconsistency. I will not 
recommend what I am not prepared to enforce by my prac- 
tice. Whenever I am ready to join in such a recommendation 
as this I shall be also ready to sign the utter pledge. Neither 
can I say that our pledge is an effectual one if I concur in the 
recommendation ; it in fact stands condemned for inefficiency — 
for a manifest failure in carrying out its object — if the recom- 
mendatory part of the resolution be our opinion of what is 
incumbent upon us. The members of the resolution do not 
stand well together — and in my opinion the recommendation 
deserves to fall. 

But we have been presented with a substitute which is 
probably as near an approach to union of sentiment as can be 
obtained. It passes a just eulogium upon our present pledge ; 
and while it contains an expression of respect for the motives 
of those who are exclusive in their practice, it neither involves 
us in a practical inconsistency by commending their example, 
nor obligates us to follow it. On the contrary, it deprecates 
the embodying of their views into our pledge, on the ground of 



Addresses 57 

the great and lasting injury which the mere attempt to do so 
has already produced. This, Sir, is not a mere suggestion of 
the fancy. The reports on your table will show that for some 
reason this great cause is at a stand; and it requires no won- 
derful penetration to discover the true reason. I believe that 
the substitute has hit the exact one ; and whatever vote may 
be taken here, I shall be none the less satisfied that the truth 
is as stated in this resolution. I have no objection to in- 
dividuals binding themselves to the most strait laced pledge 
that can be devised ; but I do object to the attempt to divert 
the current of public opinion, which now flows in a broad and 
sweeping channel, into a channel which must necessarily be 
more contracted, and therefore less beneficial. We have gone 
far enough, Sir, in individual sacrifices to the high pressure 
principles of the day. For one I will not consent to be urged 
by enthusiasm beyond the line which my own sense and con- 
science dictates to be the proper boundary of sacrifice and 
duty. I do not desire that any, great or little, should be 
scandalized or offended by any act of ours; but while I am 
willing to do all that becomes a social being, in the furtherance 
of a good cause, I am disposed to resist that rashness which, 
while seeking after theoretical perfection, will lead us by re- 
trograde steps to the point from which we originally started. 



ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI AT GENEVA 
COLLEGE, 1844. 

THE lapse of a quarter of a century of almost uninterrupted 
tranquillity has left the civilized world at leisure to pur- 
sue advantageously the arts and studies which adorn a state 
of repose, and which contribute most liberally to human re- 
finement and happiness. Military ambition, in other ages the 
chief ambition of the manly, has lost the sway that for cen- 
turies it has been accustomed to exercise without any formida- 
ble rival. The thirst for glory is no longer a thirst for the 
bloody renown of arms, but for the more quiet honors of suc- 
cessful statesmanship, of literary fame, of professional excel- 
lence, of superior mechanical ingenuity; or for what is more 
commonly attractive, the acquisition of wealth, and its tem- 
porary influence. 

This state of quiet has been highly favorable in its effect 
upon the human character. It has done much towards re- 
fining the civilized, and towards civilizing the barbarous. 
The peaceful virtues have thriven under its benign dominion 
until they have attained a root and a spread that seem to 
secure their uninterrupted growth and fruitfulness, and to 
enable them perpetually to withstand the storms with which 
a warlike ambition may yet darken and deform the world. 
The temper of this age, energetic enough and bold enough, is 
still, notwithstanding an occasional ripple on the surface of 
affairs, averse from commotions more violent than the com- 
mon excitements of politics, the enterprising ones of com- 
merce, the bustling ones of business, or the heated ones of 
opinion. Its temper is essentially, so far as physical strife is 
concerned, a peace-loving temper, either from motives of in- 

58 



Addresses 59 

dividual self interest, or from a pure attachment to peace for 
its own sake; and nothing but a keen sense of justice out- 
raged, of public faith egregiously violated, of flagrant and 
intolerable wrong committed upon acknowledged and unequiv- 
ocal rights, can at this day, among civilized nations gener- 
ally, provoke the rusting sword from its scabbard, and involve 
men, attached to calm pursuits, in the horrors, privations, 
and wickedness of a state of warfare. In proportion as they 
become enlightened, and imbued with the serene and com- 
posing influences of religion, reason and negotiation wisely 
settle those disputes which in more ignorant and passionate 
times are referred to the rash arbitrament of arms. 

An exception to these remarks may perhaps be found in 
the case of governments to which the desire of conquest, 
long indulged, has become, like habit, a second nature. It 
seems impossible for England to be satisfied with anything 
short of a universal dominion; and while other civilized na- 
tions, are reaping the rich and wholesome fruits of peace, and, 
without shedding a drop of blood, are acquiring a glory 
far more excellent than that of conquest, England alone is 
wielding the sword against unoffending and defenceless people, 
to obtain an empire destined to fall to pieces of its own 
vastness, and perhaps to overwhelm herself amidst its 
ruins. 

It was the lamentation of a great man and an eloquent 
writer, astonished by a particular instance of outrage upon a 
celebrated queen, that the "Age of Chivalry was gone." 
Except in such particular instances, and without denying any 
reasonable claims it may have to the gratitude of posterity, 
we may rejoice in its departure as a blessing to the world. 
The present generation of men is moved, on the whole, by 
better impulses and better directed, than those which gov- 
erned the age of chivalry. It is a generation devoted to sci- 
ence, to the arts, and to the laudable pursuits and business 
of peaceful life. The age of chivalry was an age of valor, of 
courtesy, and of honor; but it was an age of convulsion, of 
public warfare and private feuds. The present age is an age 



6o James Watson Williams 

of serenity, of public quiet and private happiness. The age 
of chivalry was an age of barbarism in the multitude and re- 
finement in the few ; the present age is an age of useful intel- 
ligence diffused among all classes of men. 

This, in truth, is an honorable characteristic of our times 
and country over all which have preceded them of which we 
have any authentic arid detailed memorials. I do not know 
of a period, even when philosophy and the arts flourished 
most vigorously among those nations of antiquity which are 
regarded as having fixed the standard of all that is elevated 
in intellectual effort, that in this particular can be compared 
with the present. The sun of knowledge, like the sun in the 
firmament, sheds his rays upon all; not upon all with equal 
effulgence; but so that all catch either a direct or a reflected 
beam which brightens their faculties and better qualifies them 
to discharge the duties and appreciate the true enjoyments of 
life. The spread of Christianity, which has multiplied teach- 
ers of sacred knowledge, and which more than anything else 
tends to enlighten and refine; the fecundity of the press, 
which scatters its offspring in such boundless lavishness that 
even the humblest possesses what in former times would have 
exhausted the treasures of a prince; the rapid and vast im- 
provements in mechanical knowledge, which compel the 
lowest artisan to sharpen his ingenuity and extend his ob- 
servation if he would keep pace with his calling; the multi- 
plication of elementary schools, as well as of those which 
aspire to the elevations of science and literature; the general 
instruction of the female sex; the common establishment of 
scientific and literary associations; the advance of liberal 
principles of government, tending to endue the mass with 
their due influence in its administration; all these, individu- 
ally and collectively, stamp our times with an impress that 
must forever distinguish them from the past, and mark a 
conspicuous era in the history of human advancement. 

Trite as the topics may be deemed, it would be an inter- 
esting and a useful examination to enquire how far each of the 
causes alluded to has been, is, and is likely to be influential 



Addresses 6i 

upon mankind. But even if we possessed the memory of 
the past and the foresight of the future which such an in- 
vestigation might demand, it would involve us in researches 
and comparisons that would occupy more time and industry 
than your patience or my pursuits would tolerate. It may 
not be amiss, however, to touch briefly upon some of the most 
prominent; and as first in dignity and influence, to observe 
the effects produced by Christianity, not so much in regard to 
its religious, as to its moral and practical bearing, and more 
particularly as the most powerful auxiliary in the diffusion of 
intelligence. 

The dawn of Christianity was the revealing of a more 
genial light than ever had poured its rays upon the human 
mind, or sped a beam to the heart of man to disclose its cor- 
ruptions. Until the rising of this light, the whole human race, 
with the exception of the Jews, had no more lucid moral illu- 
mination than the glimmerings of the law of nature and the 
dicta of heathen philosophy. Forty centuries had done far 
less to diffuse and impress moral truth than eighteen cen- 
turies have since accomplished. The world was then what a 
moiety of the world is now: degraded by the worst and ab- 
surdest idolatry and superstition. Even the peculiar people 
of Heaven, favored of old by a more direct revelation from 
God than any other people, and the chosen repository of that 
portion of Divine truth committed to human keeping, had 
allowed the lamp of celestial light, of which they were the 
guardians and ministers, to become incrusted so that it now 
cast but the sickly rays that portended its final extinction. 
The surrounding nations were clouded by a spiritual darkness 
that, like the darkness of the Egyptian plague, might be felt. 
From the midst of this obscurity was unostentatiously un- 
folded that more glorious emanation which Christianity dis- 
plays, and which has gradually infused into the minds of men 
a repugnance to the open and unrestrained indulgence of 
those natural passions which, among pagan nations, direct 
their public policy and control their private conduct. The phi- 
losophy of the schools, brilliant as it was, was never effectual 



62 James Watson Williams 

to this end. True, it taught opinions which were received will- 
ingly enough as abstract propositions; but they had not 
much moral force, except among philosophers themselves, as 
the guides of conduct. The precepts of Christianity have been 
more influential. Viewing them as a simple code of morals 
they embrace the elements not only of civilization but of 
refinement. Peaceful in their spirit, they have gradually 
diffused the spirit of peace; and without legitimately em- 
ploying a warlike weapon to force their triumph they have 
achieved a conquest over the passions and the intellect, which 
speaks more forcibly than a thousand arguments in behalf of 
their Divine origin. 

It is as impossible that Christianity should spread, without 
at the same time spreading light and knowledge, as that the 
sun should shed his beams without imparting heat and illu- 
mination. Its progress may be slow; but being the progress 
of truth, it is certain. "The eternal years of God are hers." 
If not intelligence itself, it proceeds from the very Fountain of 
Intelligence; and however it may be clouded by the glosses 
of its teachers, there is that in its direct and simple communi- 
cations which opens the eyes to practical truth in morals, and 
imparts a knowledge of right and wrong in act and intent 
beyond any knowledge derived from the finest systems of 
heathen philosophy. It has not only made better men, but 
sounder sages than those of pagan antiquity. It is one of its 
crowning triumphs as a code of moral science that the pro- 
foundest intellects have bowed to its precepts and confirmed 
its truth ; and that even they who scoff at its Divine original, 
acknowledge the supreme excellence of its ethics. It is not, 
like the misty tenets of Socrates, of Pythagoras, of Plato, and 
of Aristotle, confined to a school; it is the intelligible code 
of the civilized world. Everywhere is its influence felt. It 
tempers law; it has found its way into systems of interna- 
tional jurisprudence ; it is infused into the common instruction 
of the people; it moulds the manners and the habitudes 
of men ; it substitutes the steady light of truth for the ignes 
fatui of superstition ; and, particularly since the Reformation, 



Addresses 63 

it has done more to free the intellect from servitude than all 
the arguments of the wisest or the efforts of the best. 

To improve mankind is one of its first and greatest offices ; 
and for that end it sends forth its teachers, the moral phi- 
losophers of these days, more numerous and more influential 
than the sages of old. With the Bible in their hands they go 
abroad, spreading a knowledge of the true in morality and 
the right in conduct; a knowledge more serviceable than all 
the mysteries of science or the handicraft of art. These 
teachers are in constant intercourse with the mass, weekly 
and daily are they ministering to the moral wants of man, and 
imparting the precepts of truth and wisdom. They are for 
the most part men of intelligence, education, and correct life. 
To teach is their peculiar calling; and it is impossible that 
they should faithfully discharge the duties of their vocation 
without disseminating intelligence in a thousand ways. They 
are listened to with favor, and they make an impression which 
is perceptible through all the gradations of society. The 
Scriptures, which as a volume of information, of eloquence, of 
poetry, of sublime thought, of divine philosophy, are un- 
rivalled, inspire their teachings; and no other book has ever 
found its way so generally among all classes. It reveals its 
light in the cottage of the peasant as commonly as in the 
palace of the prince; and the oracles of God shall yet illu- 
minate more minds than ever the oracles of ancient super- 
stition blinded. 

In this age, then, when the fruits of Christianity are more 
diffusely scattered than in the ages past, we cannot unduly 
magnify its importance as a source and minister of know- 
ledge. It is to be reverenced as one of the most efficacious 
instruments in improving the world; and they who dispute 
its facts and doctrines, must nevertheless confess the obliga- 
tions which they owe to its morals, which are the best part 
of human science. "Christianity," says Victor Cousin in his 
celebrated report upon the Prussian System of Education, — - 
"Christianity ought to be the basis of the instruction of the 
people. We must not flinch from the open profession of this 



64 James Watson Williams 

maxim; it is no less politic than it is honest." "A religious 
and moral education," he continues, "is the first want of a 
people. Without this, every other education is not only 
without real utility, but in some respects dangerous. If, on 
the contrary, religious education has taken firm root, intel- 
lectual education will have complete success." " In our days," 
he explains, "religion means Christianity." 

Victor Cousin is a philosopher, and speaks with due con- 
sideration of the influence which Christianity exerts upon 
society, and particularly as an auxiliary to right education. 
The history of modem times is full of illustrations; and had 
he needed a triumphant one he might have referred to the 
example of our ancestors, and to the general intelligence, 
prosperity, and virtue of their descendants. Christianity, 
whether acknowledged or unacknowledged, lies at the very 
base of all. It is to our greatness and happiness, if we rightly 
regard and cultivate it, what in another sense the Coliseum 
was to Rome: 

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." 

Not, however, to enlarge upon a theme as full of interest 
as of instruction, let us contemplate for a moment the more 
palpable influence of the press in diffusing intelligence. It is 
the press, which like a prism, has scattered in every direction 
the rays of learning, that before its invention were imprisoned 
within the school and the cloister. It is the press, which, 
like the abolition of primogeniture in the law of inheritance, 
has made common stock of what in the days of antiquity, and 
during the dark ages, was the patrimony of a few. In many 
points of art and science we seem to be still behind the fame 
of the great lights of the ancient schools. The lapse of cen- 
turies has not essentially dimmed their lustre. Perhaps they 
shine even brighter from the distance. But in those great 
lights was concentrated the intelligence of their age, while the 
multitude groped in comparative darkness. The difficulty of 
multiplying books by the tedious process of manuscript copy- 



Addresses 65 

ing, and their extreme value, effectually cut off the inferior 
classes from that bountiful source of cultivation which read- 
ing supplies. The school and the Lyceum, where instruction 
was chiefly oral, afforded an imperfect substitute. The peri- 
odical press did not pour out before them, as before us, its 
daily and exhaustless profusion. "Their intellectual state," 
says a brilliant writer of the present day, "was that of men 
talked to, not written to. Their imagination was perpetually 
called forth; their deliberative reason rarely." A nice dis- 
tinction, and one which in a great degree accounts for the 
practical turn of this age as contrasted with the more showy 
and brilliant periods of Grecian and Roman history. What- 
ever may be our liability to impulses, we, on the whole, think 
more gravely, and are less easily moved by appeals to the 
passions. Reading produces reflection; and reflection, while 
it tends to check the passions, expands and strengthens the 
powers of the intellect. 

The facility which the press offers for communicating with 
the public, and laying before it the results of individual study, 
experience, and observation, stimulates literary ambition. It 
makes the press a common highway, which every man, what- 
ever his obscurity or his dignity, may travel if he pleases. 
Undoubtedly the same facility has given birth to much that is 
indifferent, much that is worthless, and much that is posi- 
tively vicious ; and it has contributed not a little to multiply 
sciolists. But notwithstanding Pope's oft quoted remark con- 
cerning the danger of a "little knowledge," and the contempt 
in which mere smatterers are justly held, it is certainly better 
to be a smatterer than to know nothing. It is better that the 
multitude should possess some information, imperfect though 
it be, than that they should remain in utter ignorance. Teach 
a man letters, and it will be a marvel if in these days, he does 
not learn something useful from books ; and even the illiterate 
must necessarily acquire a valuable stock of what may be 
called reflected knowledge from the reading community around 
him. 

Never was the press more prolific than it is now. Its 



66 James Watson Williams 

constant labor exhausts the physical power of man, and the 
steam engine does its drudgery. This very fecundity is an 
evidence of the wide diffusion of a thirst for information. 
But its whole influence as an instrument of knowledge cannot 
be appreciated unless it be regarded in connection with educa- 
tion. Without this, the press itself were shorn of its vigor. 

If the press be the lever of the vast world of thought and 
opinions, education is the fulcrum on which it rests, and with- 
out which it has no motive power. There is no coimtry 
in the world where the press is in more active operation than 
this; and it works most vigorously and successfully in that 
precise channel in which the minds of a people who are plainly 
educated, and inquisitive beyond even Athenian inquisitive- 
ness, are most likely to run. We can all understand the news- 
paper ; and it is scattered among us with boundless prodigality 
and perused with as boundless interest. This taste is the 
index of another distinctive trait of the age that arrests our 
attention : the general countenance which is given to primary 
education. 

Formerly, the young were rather disciplined than edu- 
cated. Female education, except in rare instances, was 
nothing but simple housewifery, or the training of beasts of 
burthen ; and the accomplishments of the other sex were con- 
fined, among the subordinate classes, to athletic exercises, and 
the studies that were fitted to make the soldier. From the 
earliest period of history until the decay of chivalry, the mar- 
tial spirit shed its influence upon the school as well as upon 
the camp. The highest incentive to emulation amongst the 
young, was a future career of military glory. According to 
Herodotus, from their fifth to their twentieth year, the Per- 
sian youth were instructed in three things only: the art of 
the bow, horsemanship, and a strict regard to truth. "In 
Sparta," says the author of the Rise and Fall of Athens, "the 
child was reared, from the earliest age, to a life of hardship, 
discipline, and privation; he was starved into abstinence; he 
was beaten into fortitude; he was punished without offence, 
that he might be trained to bear without a groan; the older 



Addresses 67 

he grew, till he reached manhood, the severer the discipline 
he underwent. The intellectual education was little attended 
to" . . . "but the youth was taught acuteness, promptness, 
and discernment, for such are qualities essential to the sol- 
dier." — What is thus stated of Persian and Spartan education 
defines the leading character of Grecian and Roman primary 
education generally. It was essentially military. Such also 
was the education of the ancient Germans. In those days 
human existence was but "a battle and a march upon the 
war-convulsed earth," and the great bulk of the young were 
disciplined accordingly. Now, our pursuits are of a different 
and a nobler character ; and our education is designed, if it is 
not effectually made, to correspond to them. To instruct the 
people was the first effort of our ancestry, and they directed 
the penalties of legislation against those parents who neg- 
lected to send their children to school. Akin to this wise 
policy is that of the Prussian government, which compels the 
children of all classes, noble and plebeian, to be taught either 
at home or in the primary schools which are established 
throughout the kingdom. In the most distinguished govern- 
ments of Europe a similar policy is beginning to be adopted. 
In this repubUc, as a token of our earnestness, we have in- 
dulged in a greater profuseness of expenditure in behalf of 
elementary instruction than any other nation caij boast of; 
but we are still excelled by some others in the efficiency and 
thoroughness of our system. Here, public bounty and public 
opinion take the place of public authority ; and the difference 
is not wholly in our favor. Still, ample provision is made for 
the education of all; and the multiplicity and cheapness of 
our schools leave no apology, even to the indigent, for neglect- 
ing the first duty of a parent towards his offspring. It is 
shameful for an American native citizen to be ignorant of the 
elements of knowledge; and ignorance happily is an almost 
insurmountable barrier against his elevation to those positions 
of trust and honor which in a free government are legally open 
to all. 

I have already made a casual remark upon the chilvaric 



68 James Watson Williams 

age, and qualified it with an admission that succeeding genera- 
tions owe it a debt of gratitude. That debt is principally due 
to its influence in exalting the female character above the 
contempt to which it had been degraded by all nations, except 
the ancient Germans. Chivalry paid more respect to woman ; 
but modem times have improved upon the spirit of chivalry. 
Chivalry adored; we not only adore, but educate her. It is 
not a question to be debated now, as it was once gravely de- 
bated in an ecclesiastical council, whether woman has a soul. 
The question rather is, whether she has not a soul of more 
exalted, refined, and ethereal tendencies than the soul of man; 

To educate a daughter is quite as imperative a duty as to 
educate a son, and the primary education of both is equally 
provided for by the bounty of legislation. The influence 
which woman exerts upon mankind ramifies so largely that it 
is impossible to trace it in all its manifold directions. She is 
the first teacher of the young ; and from maternal lips are im- 
bibed into the fresh and uncontaminated soul the rudiments 
of knowledge and wisdom, and the impressions which govern 
life. From her, enlightened and cultivated, spring the germs 
of intellectual vigor, no less than of physical existence. Her 
power is not the less extended because her sphere is seemingly 
confined to a household, or, in its largest expansion, to a com- 
munity. The greatest men who ever lived have confessed 
that a mother has implanted the seeds of their ability, and 
that to fireside instruction and precepts they owed their 
principles and their success. There is no surer test of the re- 
finement and intelligence of the world than the condition of 
woman affords. It was never more exalted than it is now. 

But great and imiversal as are our facilities for the ac- 
quisition of elemental knowledge, it cannot be disguised that 
(in this country) we are sadly deficient in what is usually 
termed finished education. A devotion to business, so ardent 
that it does not allow us to cultivate our minds beyond the 
actual necessities of our callings, is somewhat characteristic of 
the American people. With more of what is styled general in- 
formation, we have either less ambition or less leisure, to be- 



Addresses 69 

come learned than any other people of equal pretensions. We 
all acquire in youth the substantial knowledge that fits us to 
discharge the common duties of our several vocations; but, 
those vocations once entered upon, we suffer them to engross 
our attention. Business becomes the universal apology for 
every neglect. "But," says a great authority, whose other- 
wise vacant hours were occupied in rearing the most splendid 
intellectual monument of modern days, "the most active or 
busy man, that hath been, or can be, hath, no question, many 
vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and re- 
turns of business ' ' — ' ' and then the question is but, how those 
spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; whether 
in pleasures or in studies." I do not think that we are fairly 
chargeable with a greater devotion to pleasure than those na- 
tions whose literary reputation is much more elevated than 
ours ; but we are less devoted to studies. Aside from the cir- 
cumstance that we are young as a people, and necessarily 
under a severer obligation to labor for that wealth which time 
and prosperity have accumulated in older countries, and which 
enables its possessors to apply themselves leisurely to learning, 
a more plausible apology may be found in the want of those 
venerable and well endowed institutions which give not only 
the aliment, but the reward, of literary pursuits. We have 
few scholars by profession, and perhaps fewer by choice. We 
are in so great haste, or so urgently pressed, to engage in the 
gainful occupations of life, that the early years which are else- 
wdiere spent in the acquisition of knowledge are here ingulfed 
in the vortex of business. Necessity often, and preference 
oftener, impels us to enter upon the serious struggles of our 
several pursuits, half educated, immature, and before the 
foundations of good scholarship have had time to settle down 
into compactness and solidity. For want of suitable endow- 
ments, and of popular support, our best collegiate institutions 
are of a grade, little, if any, higher than the best preparatory 
schools of England. Eton and Westminster make as thorough 
scholars; but Eton and Westminster fit their pupils only for 
the Universities, while our Colleges fit theirs, as we flatter 



70 James Watson Williams 

ourselves, for the most exalted positions in life. The vast 
difference is palpable enough, and palpable to our great dis- 
advantage. With equal native ability and intellectual energy, 
we have less familiarity with the great productions of an- 
tiquity, less command of language, less closeness of argu- 
mentation, less knowledge of foreign tongues and literature, 
less nicety of critical discrimination, less refinement of thought, 
and less compactness and purity of style. This is obvious 
from a comparison of our respective efforts in that particular 
branch of modem literature which has taken the place formerly 
occupied by the Essayists, and which now assumes the shape 
of Reviews and Magazines. We surpass the poorest of their 
efforts, but we by no means equal the best. It is not so much 
in the staple and the bare intellectual weight of these produc- 
tions that we fail; but in the polish of our weapons and the 
nice skill in wielding them. Our mental armory is ill sup- 
plied, and in disarray; theirs is complete and well ordered, 
for constant use. 

The difference is owing to training ; to a long and laborious 
pursuit on their part of those scholastic exercises which we so 
soon dismiss from our thoughts and diligence. It is a differ- 
ence which our circumstances may perhaps fairly enough ex- 
cuse thus far, but every day is weakening the apology. We 
are constantly growing in wealth, taste, and refinement, and I 
trust in the laudable ambition to excel. We have still many 
prejudices to overcome which have hitherto impeded our lit- 
erary advancement; and the most pernicious, and I fear the 
most ineradicable of al], is the prejudice that prevails against 
a classical education as unfitted for the wants of a practical 
age. If high mental culture be useless or idle then so is 
classical education. But so long as sound learning, intellec- 
tual acuteness, chastened fancy, the power of eloquence 
spoken or written, and the capacity to understand and appre- 
ciate the wisdom and genius of the past, are held in esteem, 
the foundations of excellence in all these must be laid broad, 
deep, and thorough in a classical education. There is none 
other that can equally invigorate and polish the youthful mind. 



Addresses 71 

It trains its powers for the loftiest, most energetic, and best 
sustained flights; and there is but little that in the field of 
literature or science has become famous, which does not owe 
its excellence and its duration to the perennial and all preserv- 
ing influence of the classic spirit. It is to science and litera- 
ture what taste is to the fine arts; not their substance, but 
their vitality. 

I do not mean to be considered as affirming that a man 
may not be useful and well informed, of strong powers, and 
even of great achievements, unless he has been a student of 
books and received a finished education. Perhaps the greatest 
men in the active world have been rather distinguished for 
defective scholastic training. Greatness is the result, not so 
much of education, as of native powers forced into favorable 
display by uncommon circumstances. But I do mean to say 
that such training makes the most accomplished men, and 
gives the finest polish to a majority of minds ; that it develops 
most effectively the mass of human intellect, and cultivates 
and adorns the most exalted. I mean to affirm with the 
poet, that "education forms the common mind"; that no 
mind, however capacious or brilliant, was ever impaired by 
classic discipline, and that most minds need that discipline 
for their development and invigoration. "It is the men of 
study and thought," says a French philosopher, "who in the 
long run govern the world." 

I am conscious, gentlemen. Alumni of the Institution 
whose annual festival we are assembled to celebrate, that there 
is naught of novelty in these topics which I have thought 
proper to discuss, and that some of them have been freshly 
handled by those more competent to discuss them well. But 
their interest is perpetual; and anniversaries like this are the 
proper pauses in the course of our existence to step aside from 
the ordinary paths of life, and look backward upon the past 
and speculate upon the future. The retrospect is but recol- 
lection, and all of us have memory; the prospect is confused 
and indistinct, and none of us have the gift of seers. But the 
world is constantly moving onward, and such pauses serve us 



72 James Watson Williams 

to note the rate of its progression ; to remind us of what has 
been achieved, and what remains to be accomplished. There 
are other very important characteristics of our times which 
might profitably be contemplated; but I have chosen rather 
to direct your attention, gentlemen, to some of those distinc- 
tive traits and tendencies which effect the spread of intelli- 
gence, and which Men of Education should contemplate with 
reference to their peculiar duties as Men of Education. We 
have received the stamp of a collegiate degree as the evidence 
of our title to that honorable character. I trust it is not all the 
evidence we propose to offer to the world of our being worthy 
of it. It is in our power, and is really our duty, to give higher 
testimony still. 

If we but open our eyes, we observe in a country boasting 
of its intelligence, but as yet in its infancy, a prevailing neglect 
of study and learning in their serener altitudes ; it is our duty 
to make such study and learning respectable and appreciated, 
by showing in ourselves that it is useful and adapted no less 
to the practical purposes of life than to the exaltation of the 
mind. We observe unfixed principles and loose opinions; it 
is our duty to strive to settle them on the foundations of 
reason and the substantial basis of religion. We observe the 
constant outbreaks of vacillating and ill-regulated minds into 
vagaries and fanaticism ; it is our duty, from the accumulated 
wisdom of the past and by a sage application of it to the 
present, to display the true guides of human action, and to 
sustain our posts manfully against the ever shifting encroach- 
ments of ignorance and delusion. We observe the community 
agitated by schemes of reformation and improvement, de- 
signed for good ends, but bottomed on false principles; it is 
our duty, while we set a good example in practice, to expose 
the defects of the groundwork, that error may not triumph 
under the cloak of philanthropy ; that independence of action 
may not be subjugated, and individuality of character may 
not be effaced in some common effort to conform the whole 
community to a particular model ; and that we may not be 
forced by the spread of enthusiastic devotion to some sweeping 



Addresses 73 

project for the amelioration of our race to become vassals to 
the opinions of others, or hypocrites to secure their esteem. 
We stand on an eminence from which we may, if we choose, 
shed an influence in behalf of truth, reason, and knowledge, 
that shall tell with power upon the future character and 
destinies of a great people. We cannot conscientiously hide 
our accumulations of light and intelligence under a bushel, 
but should clearly display them from those intellectual 
heights whence they may radiate most diftusely upon the 
paths of human life. As educated men we occupy a vantage 
ground that enables us to achieve a great conquest in the 
warfare that is constantly waging between truth and error, 
between ignorance and intelligence, between bigotry and toler- 
ance, between order and confusion. Do we not perceive in 
our position a strong demand upon us to give a verity and 
reality to our parchment honors, by assiduously culturing our 
own minds, and emitting light about the paths we move in? 
It is not enough that we escape poverty or accumulate wealth 
by our industry, and that we pass through life with the ordi- 
nary credit of honest, well-meaning, and capable men. We 
thus fall short of our duty. Society has a right to form higher 
expectations of us, and to demand that they shall be fulfilled. 
If we, claiming to be educated, achieve nothing more than 
the uneducated are capable of accomplishing, we defraud the 
community of its reasonable rights and do incalculable injury 
to the cause of solid learning and science, by riveting more 
strongly the prejudices now too prevalent against that higher 
education which institutions like this are designed to encour- 
age; and which none more efficiently labors to impart than 
this. We have not, it is true, the advantage of fellowships, 
and the means of pursuing within literary enclosures those 
exalted studies in which we are here groimded; but we have, 
all of us, those " vacant times of leisure" of which Lord Bacon 
speaks, in which to follow up their highest elevations as the 
literary pursuits which shed a brilliant glory over professional 
excellence; which constantly ripen, and fertilize the mind; 
and which better fit it to appear with ability and honor in all 



74 James Watson Williams 

the varied positions in which the accomplished citizen of a 
repubHc may be called upon to act. We owe it not only to 
society and to ourselves to make these acquisitions, but to our 
literary foster-mother, that she may have pride and pleasure 
in her sons ; and that she may see here and there one of them 
adorning his day and generation with the example of a ripe 
scholar, a man of taste, of professional eminence, copious as a 
writer, eloquent as an orator. It is her ambition, and it 
should be ours, to commend to the favor of the community 
the noble treasures of learning, by displaying them in con- 
stant connection with the daily occupations of life, as they 
illuminate, sharpen, invigorate, and adorn our intellectual 
powers ; as they elevate and chasten our judgments ; as they 
give edge to our wit, and brilliancy to our imaginations. It 
is thus that we may be practical without being pedantic ; that 
.we may exhibit the vast advantages of erudition, without any 
affectation of the school; that we may combine the efficient 
discharge of active duties with the polish and meditation of the 
closet ; that we may enter into the arena of public life equipped 
with the well adjusted armor of study and reflection; and 
that we may shine to the world not with the glimmer that 
betrays the incrusted diamond, but with the full and radiant 
brilliancy that it discloses under the laboring hand of the 
lapidary. 

Our education when we leave these walls is, after all, but 
rudimental. Our path is marked out and whither it leads. 
Nothing more. It is the work of our lives to pursue it, for it 
is interminable here, and points to the Great Fountain of In- 
telligence as its limit. Yet how many of us, having achieved 
our collegiate labors, forthwith cast aside our books, as a cap- 
tive might his fetters, and bid a last and unreluctant farewell to 
the groves of Academus? The advantages and the honors of 
scholarship and literature are only acquired by unremitting 
labor, and they are worthy of all the industry which the neces- 
sary duties of life will permit us to bestow upon them. They 
bring with them, like Virtue, their own reward ; and like Vir- 
tue, they are the offspring, not of a moment, but of years, of 



Addresses 75 

effort. The fraction of our youth which we ordinarily devote 
to their attainment serves but to test and invigorate our 
tender pinions, and to initiate us in the arts by which we may 
venture to soar aloft whenever the stem requisitions of life 
demand our manly exertions. We must go on ripening, or 
we shall never reach maturity. The loftiest pitch of the eagle 
is not reached at once from, the nest. The new fledged wing 
of the eaglet is first exercised in uncouth gyrations ; and flight 
after flight is practised, with stubborn energy, until his vigor- 
ous pinion finally elevates him to the Sun. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UTICA ACADEMY, 

ON THE OPENING OF THE NEW ACADEMIC 

BUILDING, JANUARY 31, 1868. 

IT was a happy providence for the central part of New York, 
that it was first civilized by men whose footsteps were 
always promptly followed, or, to speak more significantly, 
always accompanied by religion and education. Wherever 
the men and women of New England clustered, their first 
provision was for schools and religious service; indeed, the 
school house, Hke the famous ale house chest, was "contrived 
a double debt to pay," and was a common convenience for 
a school week-days and a house of prayer Sundays. As they 
went forth with their great purpose of appropriating a hemi- 
sphere to freedom and Christianity, they usually went in little 
groups or colonies, animated by a common sentiment which 
not only inspired and governed them, but left its impression 
on their successors. To this it is owing that the moral and 
social reputation of this region was at once most favorably 
distinguished; and still maintains, in a remarkable degree, 
notwithstanding the copious influx of heterogeneous elements, 
the same characteristic, as compared with later and more 
bustling and ambitious communities. The staid, conservative 
and refined tone of society, which for years made the old town 
of Whitestown conspicuous — a town then comprehending all 
Western and Northern New York — still pervades the well 
populated territory which formerly composed it. The off- 
spring of that part of it which finally became Oneida have won 
for themselves a good name ever3rwhere; and there is to this 

76 



Addresses T^ 

day a complimentary significance in the appellation " an 
Oneida County man." 

The first group of settlers in Clinton, for an illustration, 
were of the same vicinage before they emigrated; and they 
had not been roughly housed more than six years, struggling 
with the forest and the elements for the bare necessities of life, 
before they had aspired beyond a common school, and had 
founded an Academy, which was the germ of what now, in 
about half a century, is a well-endowed and well-reputed Col- 
lege of the first rank. In like manner, but with unequal step, 
the early settlers of Utica, set up an Academy; which, al- 
though it has not yet reached the dignity of a collegiate 
foundation, has reached a reputation and permanence that 
make its past history worthy of reminiscence on such an 
occasion as this. ^ 

About a score of years after the first settlement of Utica, 
and before it was a village by any legal christening; when it 
numbered a population of about 1,700, and the country was in 
the midst of a war with Great Britain (1813) ; nineteen citizens, 
not one of whom is living to witness this auspicious day, asked 
the Regents of the University to incorporate an Academy in 
their village. Juvenile as I feel, I am forced to confess that I 
personally remember every one of them; and their names 
were Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, Arthur Breese, John Steward, 
Jr., Thomas Walker, Bryan Johnson, David W. Childs, Eben- 
ezer B. Shearman, Samuel Stocking, Augustus Hickox, Gurdon 
Burchard, Benjamin Paine, Abraham Varick, Jr., Abraham 
Van Santvoord, James Van Rensselaer, Jr., Erastus Clark, 
James S. Kip, Joseph Kirkland, John Bellinger, and Nathan 
Williams. A charter was granted on the twenty-eighth of 
March, 18 14, which bears the manly signature of Daniel D. 
Tompkins, as Chancellor of the University, incorporating the 
Utica Academy. Only seven of the trustees named in the 
charter were of the nineteen petitioners for it, and of the other 
six, whom I also personally remember, and whose names were 
Francis A. Bloodgood, Apollos Cooper, Solomon Wolcott, 
Thomas Skinner, Talcott Camp and Anson Thomas, not one is 



78 James Watson Williams 

now living ; so that half a century has buried all of the original 
founders of the Academy, who were mostly men of mark in 
their day and generation, and I fear, are mostly forgotten 
now. 

But the getting of a charter was then the simplest part of 
the process of founding such a school; especially as some es- 
sential legal preliminaries for its validity — such as an aca- 
demic building and an annual income of one hundred dollars 
— were apt to be assumed as mere postulates. So at least 
they were in this case; for except as they are alleged in the 
charter as entities, the academic building was a "castle in 
Spain," and the annual income a rent secured by it. Never- 
theless, within a month, the zealous trustees chose Thomas 
Walker for Treasurer, and Ebenezer B. Shearman for Secre- 
tary, adopted a seal, and resolved upon a subscription that 
should make all pretensions good. 

As the charter created a close corporation — a corporation 
with all the soul it had confined to the particular trustees 
named in it, and such successors as they themselves might 
choose, and which had no stock or stockholders — obviously 
every gift for its purpose was so much money thrown away, 
so far as any chance of pecuniary gain, or even of personal 
influence was concerned; and there could, therefore, be no 
other motive for making it, except a great public benefit or 
some local competitory strife. 

The first subscription, dated January i, 1814, was drawn 
up by the late Alexander B. Johnson, who for a time was one 
of the most active of the trustees. It had a marginal after- 
thought appended to it, which enlarged the original purpose 
of a mere academic building into that of a building for the ac- 
commodation of Courts of Justice and public meetings. From 
this, I infer, that subscribers could not be obtained for the 
first exclusive design; and after a little fruitless experiment 
that way, it was found necessary to modify the terms of the 
subscription to give it success. After about sixteen hundred 
dollars had been subscribed, its circulation ceased. 

In 181 5, for some technical reason I suppose, the trustees 



Addresses 79 

by a formal resolution accepted their trust under the charter, 
and requested the Reverend W. Townsend, who had then a 
grammar school on Genesee Street, to take charge of the Acad- 
emy for one year, at a compensation of seven hundred and 
fifty dollars, to be collected by himself at the usual rates of 
tuition, and any deficiency to be provided for by the trustees. 
This offer seems to have been declined, and there was inaction, 
until in 1816, a committee of the citizens proposed to the 
trustees to aid them in erecting a building for an "Academy, 
Town House, and Court House," which was at first peremp- 
torily rejected, but the next day conceded ; and subscriptions 
were started for the triple purpose contemplated. At once 
there sprung up a famous controversy about a site for the 
proposed structure; and Genesee Road, Miller Road, and 
Whitesboro Road had a street fight to settle that matter. 
The Van Rensselaers, the Bleeckers, Dudleys and Millers, the 
Coopers, Potters and Bellingers, contested it so hotly that it 
became necessary, as expressed in the new subscription paper, 
in order to "secure harmony in the village," that the sub- 
scriptions should be so made as that every subscriber to the 
amount of five dollars should have a vote for either of two 
sites designated; one of which was the site finally adopted, 
and the other a lot on Genesee Street, then adjoining the old 
Van Rensselaer homestead, and occupied for a private school, 
now the site of Grace Church and the Butterfield House; 
Whitesboro Street voluntarily, or probably involuntarily, 
being excluded from the vote. 

The final subscription, dated May 4, 18 16, is a venerable 
document, the body of it printed, and both printing and sig- 
natures done on a roll of parchment a yard and a half long, 
well filled with names and subscriptions from three hundred 
dollars down to five dollars. At the foot are two certificates 
engrossed by Col. Benjamin Walker, the military companion, 
friend, and a legatee of Baron Steuben ; one of them purporting 
that subscriptions have been duly made to the required 
amount within the prescribed time, (only twenty-six days,) 
and the other that on polling the votes for a site, as provided 



8o James Watson Williams 

in the document, 667 votes were found in favor of the site on 
Chancellor's Square, and 445 in favor of that on Genesee 
Street, being a majority of 222 ; so that Genesee Road had to 
retire from the great contest, satisfied with its private school 
and its Seneca Turnpike, and Whitesboro Road with its York 
House and the graveyard. Chancellor's Square, with its ca- 
pacity for possible glories, proved triumphant; for although 
it was an uninclosed boggy plain, with a dirty ditch stagnating 
through the middle, yet a prescient eye might perceive that 
it had not only the present certainty of a roomy play ground, 
with convenient mud-puddle facilities for boyish aquatic 
entertainments, but that it might in the course of time, when 
surrounded by imposing domestic and public buildings, be a 
fine park and breathing place for crowded institutions, as we 
see it is at the present day. 

The choice, however, was strongly stimulated, and prob- 
ably decided, by a supplemental or auxiliary subscription 
printed like the last, but on ignoble paper instead of parch- 
ment, (and with a written modification appurtenant,) to which 
are attached the significant signatures of John R. Bleecker, 
Charles E. Dudley, and one or two more who meant that noth- 
ing should bind them unless their favorite site was secured; 
and on which there was a quiet corner subscription, by Dudley 
and Miller, of two village lots, valued at five hundred dollars, 
contingent on that site being selected. These lots were after- 
wards duly conveyed to the trustees, and proved serviceable 
in various contingencies by way of pledge, mortgage and 
final sale. 

The old parchment subscription was strong and law proof ; 
for there is endorsed on it an interlocutory judgment in 
the Common Pleas, against one unfortunate subscriber whose 
prosperity did not survive to the day of payment. It was 
also strong in amount ; upwards of five thousand dollars being 
subscribed to it, in a period which even now would have to be 
doubled to raise the like amount for a like purpose. 

Another important difficulty did not excite so much ri- 
valry in the adjustment of it as the selection of the site, which 



Addresses 8i 

was on the whole, rather expeditiously managed; and that 
difficulty was the completion of the fund to an amount ade- 
quate to finish the building, and yield the requisite income of 
one hundred dollars a year, so unhandsomely and niggardly 
exacted by the charter as a fundamental condition of its 
vitality. The village authorities at length voted an aid, to- 
wards completing the building, of three hundred dollars, on 
certain wary conditions, one of which was that the perpetuity 
of the charter should be unquestionably secured by the pro- 
vision of a fund to pay the annual hundred. It was proposed 
that the trustees should meet this emergency by individually 
assuming this payment ; but after subscribing such an under- 
taking, some refractory ones withdrew, and that resource 
failed. 

Just before this, in June, 1818, Apollos Cooper having re- 
signed as trustee, William H. Maynard had been chosen to fill 
the vacancy; and the marks of his vigor and activity are 
henceforth traceable in various suggestions and reports in 
writing which, although not signed by him, are cognizable by 
a peculiar chirography only surpassed by that of Napoleon 
Bonaparte or Rufus Choate. It was not, however, a degener- 
ate hand- — a hand fallen from a prior state of excellence into 
hopeless negligence, like some inscrutable and undecipherable 
hands I have known ; but it was a predestinate bad hand ; un- 
improvably bad from the beginning; a matured inveterate 
school-boy exercise of pot hooks and hangers, that could not 
possibly be written hurriedly; and was strongly compulsory 
of deliberateness, brevity and terseness of style. He was, I 
suppose, the proposer of a fresh subscription, on which was 
raised about five hundred dollars, which was followed by a 
pledge of the Dudley and Miller lots to secure the annual in- 
come. Anson Thomas now resigning, John C. Devereux was 
selected to fill the vacancy, and Messrs. Maynard, Walker and 
Childs were appointed to make arrangements for the opening 
of the Academy; to devise a system of instruction; and to 
seek for a qualified person to take charge of the institution. 
The building had finally been completed at an expense of 

6 



82 , James Watson Williams 

eight thousand dollars; but I find no data, beyond the sub- 
scription already mentioned and the village aid, by which to 
trace the gradual accumulation of such a sum during the four 
years that had elapsed since the date of the charter. 

The Academy building was an unpretending brick edifice, 
of two stories ; about fifty by sixty feet, with a wide hall ; one 
large room on the north and two smaller on the south, on the 
first floor; and the whole upper floor was the court room. 
The external appearance of the structure was not such as 
would now strike the e^^e very favorably, although it was a 
well proportioned and symmetrical building, possessing more 
of the old breadth of style than is agreeable to modem eyes 
stretched to see only the beauty of height and narrowness. 
With suitable external embellishments, such as the economy 
of that day would not tolerate, it would have been a tasteful 
edifice, if left to stand alone, without any towering neighbors 
to put it out of countenance. But it was never commodious 
for its purpose, and was ill calculated to serve the double 
use it was destined to. 

It was now July, 1818. The population of the village was 
much increased, and it had a charter of a year old. It had 
already begun to dwarf the neighboring villages of their com- 
parative superiority, to surpass them in business and energy, 
and to feel assured of a continuous growth and prosperity, on 
account of being on the line of the proposed great canal. 

In August, 1 8 18, the Reverend Samuel T. Mills was ap- 
pointed the first Preceptor of the Academy, at a salary of eight 
hundred dollars a year, payable quarterly. To make the new 
building accessible, the late Rudolph Snyder, afterwards en- 
thusiastic as one of the school commissioners, was especially 
impowered to improve the walk from the building to John 
Street ; an improvement which at the present day is only trace- 
able between barrels of ale in the cellar of the Court House, 
which covers the John Street front of the old premises. At 
the same time a committee was appointed to adjust a plan for 
a female school as part of the Academy. In October, a Mr. 
Whiteside was chosen assistant teacher for six months, with a 



Addresses 83 

compensation at the rate of three hundred dollars a year. 
How long he served as such does not appear; but I well re- 
member the great rejoicing when, the scholars assembling one 
Monday morning, it was luckily discovered that the assistant 
had taken imdue advantage of Sunday to disappear from 
scenes of harshness and severity that made his exit a refreshing 
change. The shout of "Old Whiteside 's run away!" echoed 
and re-echoed across the bogs of Chancellor's Square even to 
the far distant sulphur springs, and Ballou's Creek; and the 
half holiday which was the legacy of his inglorious retirement 
was spent in rambling, frolicking and shouting ' ' as only boy- 
hood can," amid those scenes of primeval nature almost un- 
recognizable now. No ghost ever evaporated with half the 
relief to the terrified spectators that was felt by the pupils on 
the vanishing of the ill-starred Whiteside. 

The rest of the year 1 8 1 8 was marked by no more important 
event than a formal acknowledgment, by a resolution of the 
trustees, of the unhappy right to hold courts in the Academy, 
which was afterwards resolutely claimed and exercised, to the 
mutual discomfort of court and school; requiring constables 
to stand guard during play hours to stifle urchin shouts, and 
interrupting the sacred silence of study hours by the tread 
and turmoil of throngs of jurymen, witnesses, attorneys and 
judges; to say nothing of the rather pleasant grievance of 
being routed out of this and that recitation room to make way 
for jurymen about to cast lots or toss coppers for verdicts. 

In January, 18 19, William Hayes was appointed to teach 
writing and arithmetic three hours a day, at fifty dollars a 
quarter; and about the same time Mr. Maynard, as chairman 
of a special committee for that purpose, reported the first 
rules and regulations for the government of the Academy, 
whereby it was provided that an academical quarter was to 
consist of eleven weeks and a half, (leaving six scattered weeks 
for vacations, so economical were they of holiday time in 
those days,) and requiring one public examination and exhibi- 
tion every year ; the exhibition for the purpose of declamation 
and colloquies and an address by some person. The trustees 



84 James Watson Williams 

were to visit the school once a month, in classes, and there was 
to be an examination by the teachers at the close of each 
quarter. There were to be three classes of pupils; and the 
chief distinction between them seems to have been that one 
class paid five dollars, one four, and one three dollars a quarter 
for tuition; a distinction which prevails to a great extent in 
select schools of the present day, Mr. Ambrose Kasson was 
now appointed an assistant teacher in the English department. 

In June of that year was made the first report on the state 
of the Academy, which is recorded as favorable. It is re- 
markable for containing what, I presume, is the original prece- 
dent of that venerable formulary of criticism on declamation 
which, from that day to this, has been reiterated in the ears of 
all youthful oratorical aspirants : ' ' too rapid a manner, and a 
sinking of the voice at the closing of a period." This formu- 
lary, I believe, may be safely attributed to the late Thomas 
Skinner, who was in his early day, an eloquent man without 
too rapid a manner, ' ' but whose voice prematurely sank long 
before "the closing of his period." 

Just now both Bryan Johnson, and his son, the late Alex- 
ander B. Johnson, whose activity has been observed in the 
early efforts to establish the Academy, resigned their position 
as trustees; and their places were filled by Judge Morris S. 
Miller and William Williams. Talcott Camp resigned, and 
Ezekiel Bacon succeeded him. Mr. Camp was a gentleman 
who had seen revolutionary service, of marked and dignified 
personal appearance, of courteous manners, who generally held 
some position of public confidence, and who always com- 
manded respect, and in his later years veneration. He died 
of cholera in 1832. 

■ Mr. Skinner was selected to make the address at the an- 
nual exhibition of this year, of which it is to be regretted that 
there is no record, for if done at all, it was undoubtedly done 
with ability. Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and Arthur Breese, 
now resigning, Erastus Clark and Montgomery Hunt filled 
their places; and Judge Miller was chosen President of the 
Board to succeed Mr. Van Rensselaer, who was the first Presi- 



Addresses ' 85 

dent, and from the beginning a stanch friend of the institution. 
It was he who first offered a fine lot on Genesee Street for the 
site of the Academy; but, that site not being adopted, the 
gift failed. It is now of great value. He was a gentleman of 
wealth and weight, the father of a large family, some of the 
daughters of which married men of subsequent distinction, 
such as Charles H. Carroll and Francis Granger. His mansion 
and grounds were distinguished in that day, as were those of 
his neighbor, Mr. Breese, for their tasteful style and spacious- 
ness; and they were both esteemed citizens. 

In October, Mr. Mills was formally appointed Principal, 
(sinking his first title of Preceptor,) at a reduced salary; the 
addition of dignity probably compensating for the diminution 
of pay. But he did not long retain either, ill health compelling 
him to resign in the same month. He was a Presbyterian or 
Congregational clergyman, well educated, of an infirm con- 
stitution which impaired his efficiency in the position of a prin- 
cipal teacher, and, as I remember, of a somewhat distant and 
forbidding manner. But as this is a juvenile impression, I 
would not record it to his prejudice; for I believe he was an 
earnest and worthy man, and of sufficient acquirements. He 
'did not long survive his resignation. 

Probably the affairs of the Academy were now in a pre- 
carious condition ; for an agreement was made with Mr. Hayes, 
already engaged in teaching writing and arithmetic, and Mr. 
William Sparrow, a graduate of an English or Irish Univer- 
sity, and a student of theology and candidate for orders in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, to teach the Academy for nine 
months; they to have the tuition money, and to pay the 
trustees twenty-five dollars a quarter for their privilege. This 
odd reservation was likely made to secure the income required 
by the charter, which seems, unlike most incomes, to have been 
a perpetual hindrance rather than a help. The arrangement 
was a sort of partnership that left the preeminence doubtful 
between the classical preceptor and the teacher of mathe- 
matics and penmanship. 

Of Mr. Sparrow I have a faint recollection as a gentleman 



86 James Watson Williams 

of good education and of foreign ways, and, withal, however 
skilled for a professor, not well adapted for popularity with 
boys, in consequence of a certain distance and air of haughti- 
ness which forbade the usual familiarity that may well exist 
between a teacher and well behaved pupils. He afterwards, 
if my memory is not confused by identity of names, became a 
Divine and a Professor in Gambler College, Ohio, and is now 
connected with some theological seminary in Virginia. ' 

Mr. Hayes was a penman and book-keeper of the old Eng- 
lish school; of that period when thoroughness and skill dis- 
tinguished those arts. He was none of your twelve-lesson 
men ; but began at the beginning, with full fed, broad -nibbed 
goose quills, that made their marks, straight or round, of good 
portly body strokes and clean hair strokes, which followed each 
other, after a short experience, without a ruled page to guide 
them, with perfect uniformity and drill. He suffered no med- 
dling with current hand until you had first served a full ap- 
prenticeship at elemental lines and curves of manly length, 
and fair, bold sweep. When you had gone through a book or 
two of half inch small letters, distinct enough to be criticized 
across the school room, he instructed you in the high art of 
capitals, plain, open, fair, and of honest aspect that might be 
recognized of all men. He did not throw his whole force, as 
some do, upon their ornamentation, making them every thing, 
and their little followers nothing ; much as we see the officers 
of a military force, all epaulettes and feathers, followed by an 
undistinguishable trail of rank and file that no one can indi- 
vidualize. He handled his quill deliberately, as if he loved its 
movements; and his manuscript had a fair roast-beef and 

^ Before Mr. Sparrow was connected with the Academy, he kept a private 
classical school, which was a rival. The pupils of both participated in the 
rivalry. An old fellow pupil of the Academy reminds me that the Sparrow 
boys would sometimes call out to the Mills boys in passing, ' ' Ten Mills make 
one cent," to which the Mills boys would profanely reply, "Are not two 
Sparrows sold for a farthing?" As mental arithmetic was not taught by 
either of these distinguished schools, this knotty question of relative values 
and the reduction of currencies would of course send both parties to their 
slates, and put an end to hostile joking for that day. 



Addresses 87 

plum-pudding air that betokened good faith and honesty, and 
a mind earnest upon its work. He could keep as fair and fine 
a ledger as any man; and yet he could fill a letter page with 
neat, legible, uniform writing, which many a fancy book- 
keeper is quite incompetent to do with all his capacity for 
cutting flourishes. A blot, an erasure, an interlineation, was 
his abhorrence. How it would grieve his simple heart to go 
into an attorney's office, or some of our public offices, and see 
the scrawls that pass muster for handwriting, and are deemed 
good enough for deeds and wills and records, and compared 
with which old Gothic and old Court hand will be more legible 
in the next generation! I do not know what became of Mr. 
Hayes after his two or three years' connection with the Acad- 
emy ; but I revere his name and memory on account of some 
fair chirography which I occasionally see, that might not have 
existed but for him. 

In the next year (182 1) a committee was appointed to 
make arrangements for continuing the school ; and in the year 
succeeding (1822) Mr. Kasson, former assistant to Mr. Mills, 
proposed to remove his select school to the Academy, and to 
associate with him Mr. Edward Aiken as a classical teacher. 
This proposition was not concurred in; but I have a distinct 
recollection that, in some way, Mr. Aiken was for a short time 
engaged in the Academy. He was a brother of the Rev. 
Samuel C. Aiken, at that time the pastor of the First Presby- 
terian Church in Utica, and at the time of his connection with 
the Academy was engaged in the study of medicine, in which 
he was graduated Doctor; but did not long survive, and died 
at the South. 

From that time, March, 1822, there is a gap in the records, 
and nothing appears in the volume to indicate the situation of 
the Academy, until April, 1824, about two years. During that 
interval, however, or the most of it, the school was in charge 
of Captain Charles Stuart, as Principal. He was a half-pay 
officer in the British East India service, had been many years 
in the East, and had acquired a particular knowledge of the 
Hindu, in which language he had many manuscripts, most of 



88 James Watson Williams 

them, I think, in his own hand, which was peculiarly small and 
neat. He was conscientious to morbidness. He was eccen- 
tric in his dress and in his ways. His mode of life seemed to 
be a penance for something, — perhaps for the sins of the whole 
race of Stuarts, Pretender and all; perhaps for the misdeeds of 
Warren Hastings and the East India Company, whose servant 
himself had been. He daily deluged himself with water ex- 
ternally and internally. It was reported that he often slept 
out of doors summer nights ; and he walked four or five miles 
to get an appetite or a digestion, probably both, for his bread 
and milk, which he took at a distant farm house. He wore on 
all occasions, and at all seasons, a Scotch plaid frock with a 
cape reaching nearly to the elbows, until he became a licentiate 
or a minister, when the plaid garment was changed for a black 
cloth of the same odd make, in which he mounted the pulpit. 
He was a peculiar mixture of the severe and the playful ; tre- 
mendous in his wrath, and hilarious in his relaxed moods; 
with a most attractive smile, and a thunderous volcanic frown, 
in which there seemed to be a struggle to put down some 
violent passion ; withal of the most humane and tender feel- 
ings; fond of children and youth, and of joining boyishly in 
their sports, but strict with them, and often bitter in his re- 
proofs and terrible in his punishments of casual offences of 
which they did not always know the exact enormity; par- 
ticularly of those against religion, purity, and good manners. 
He once administered severe chastisement for the use of a 
word in boys' play, the vicious meaning of which was obsolete, 
and certainly was not known to any pupil in the sense in which 
it struck the teacher's sensitive ear. He was an earnest, ener- 
getic, enthusiastic man; every way uncompromising; of very 
strong and somewhat testy religious feelings; and altogether 
one of the most eccentric and mystical men I ever knew. It 
seemed as if God were in all his thoughts, and all that he did 
was done with his might, and as if under the ' ' Great Task Mas- 
ter's Eye." Although many thought him fanatical, none ever 
questioned his thorough sincerity ; and no teacher ever left the 
charge of the Academy with more regret of the pupils, or with 



Addresses 89 

a stronger expression of the kind feelings and hearty unwilling- 
ness of the trustees. He was afterwards for some years en- 
gaged in missionary enterprises connected with the questions 
of slavery and temperance, married late, and finally retired 
into Canada, where he died at a good old age, some three or 
four years since. 

Succeeding Mr. Stuart, was Alexander Dwyer, a graduate, 
and I think, a Fellow, of Trinity College, Dublin. He was 
accomplished both in the classics and the mathematics. He 
had sufficient self-conceit and vanity of good looks, and little 
warmth or geniality of manner ; and lacked the art, so impor- 
tant in a teacher, of attracting the confidence and attachment 
of his pupils. Perhaps much was owing to former scholastic 
habits, and a want of general intercourse with men outside of 
the cloisters, and something to an unfamiliarity with a school 
life and discipline so unconstrained as ours. His discipline 
was somewhat of the Busby sort; but he did not succeed, as 
Busby did, in administering it satisfactorily either to the re- 
cipients or their natural guardians. It was probably this cir- 
cumstance, and his cold, ungenial manners, that shortened his 
connection with the school. He kept a bachelor's quarters. 
He was a great admirer of Canning's statesmanship and elo- 
quence, and of Lord Byron's verse. He used to read to me 
from a copy of the Giaour or the Siege of Corinth in his own 
manuscript, which was very neat and scholarly. He had a 
striking head for a cast, but it lacked the Yankee sort of brains 
for a good live model. I am not sure but that the plaster 
bust he had of Canning, in his own fancy resembled himself, 
and was the prime spring of his admiration of that statesman. 
There was no doubt, however, of his scholarship, whatever 
question might be made of his faculty for imparting it. The 
last I heard of him he was in a Western State, seedy and desti- 
tute, and probably revolving the fallacy of the old proverb 
that "learning is better than house and lands." A brother of 
his was an assistant teacher with Mr. Stuart and himself. He 
was also a Trinity College man. 

For several years hitherto, and perhaps later, a portion of 



90 James Watson Williams 

the academic building was occupied by a janitor, whose quar- 
ters for a household of infinite multiplying power were confined, 
nominally, to the southeast room, with a free run of the hall 
and the court room stairs, a portion of the cellar, and all of 
the rear yard for a potato and cabbage patch. Frequent were 
the small strifes that kept up confusion between the pets of the 
household (bestial and human) and the boys of the school ; to 
say nothing of the private family commotions with which no 
stranger might intermeddle, that were breaking out discord- 
antly at untimely intervals, and still less of the culinary fumes 
that daily vexed the atmosphere of the ill-accommodating 
edifice. The janitor's powers of silence were of a stentorian 
sort, and his attempts at quieting a hubbub as overpowering 
as the drums and trumpets that stifie the voices of noisy 
martyrs at the stake or on the scaffold. He was for a long time 
master of the whole premises, until he had acquired such an 
indefeasible right of occupancy that he felt entitled to stay 
without rent or service, and finally compelled a resort to legal 
measures to oust him. He afterwards enlisted for a soldier, 
and was promoted to a sergeantcy, which to him was what 
a lieutenant-general's buttons might be to another. Great on 
the muster roll of swelling martinets was Sergeant John Has- 
son, the first and last resident Janitor of the old Academy ! 

In November, 1824, on the death of Judge Miller, who died 
before the prime of ordinary life, but had a reputation much 
beyond it, and is recalled by those of this generation who re- 
member him, as a scholar, a gentleman of the old school, a 
lover of hospitality, and a man dignified by public position — 
Erastus Clark was chosen President of the Trustees; and 
Thomas H. Hubbard, the Rev. Samuel C. Aiken, pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. Henry Anthon, rector 
of Trinity Church, were chosen Trustees in the place of Judge 
Miller, deceased, and of David W. Childs and James Piatt, who 
had removed from the village. Of Mr. Childs I will say here 
that he also, like Judge Miller, died prematurely as respects the 
ordinary duration of life, and that he was a lawyer of success 
and distinction, active, genial, and of a family respected and 



Addresses 91 

distinguished. At the same time a committee was appointed 
to obtain a suitable Principal; and in January, 1825, Mr. David 
Prentice, then Principal of the Oxford Academy, to which he 
had given such a good name for thoroughness of teaching and 
discipline that the pupils flocked to it from considerable dis- 
tances, and several of them from Oneida County, was ap- 
pointed Principal. He seems to have infused a more vigorous 
spirit into the management of the school, as is indicated 
trivially by a fresh classification of the Trustees for monthly 
visits, which, doubtless, after the usual manner of such cere- 
monies, had been sadly, and perhaps wisely enough neglected. 

In the next year, 1826, James Piatt, having returned to 
reside here, was reelected a trustee, in place of Erastus Clark, 
third President of the Board, just deceased. Mr. Clark was a 
lawyer, a man of strongly marked character, of noted integ- 
rity, and of shrewd, sharp sense ; of fine classical acquirements, 
which he kept up fresh to the close of his life ; of thorough his- 
torical knowledge, and a wonderful memory of it ; sparing of 
words, but not of point or pith; a man to the purpose, but 
somewhat cynical ; not quite bland enough to be popular, but 
esteemed for his independence and force of mind. In the 
same year, an executive committee was appointed, with power 
to procure books, globes, maps and apparatus, and Mr. William 
A. Barber was chosen as an assistant teacher. 

Everything went on for a year or two in a smooth, pacific 
way, until in November, 1828, military drill was instituted 
as an experimental regular exercise, with real wooden guns, 
which accounts for the subsequent brilliant displays of the 
troops of this vicinage in hotly contested fields of the war of 
the rebellion, not including Bull Run. 

The salary of the Principal at this time was seven hundred 
dollars, and of the assistant, five hundred dollars ; but in order 
to get it they had to collect the bills for tuition, which doubt- 
less contributed largely to their health, and pleasantly relieved, 
the tedium of a sedentary life. The military drill gave them, 
also, a well trained company of pupils to inforce the collections 
by reprisals or otherwise. 



92 James Watson Williams 

The Regents of the University also now pronounced their 
testimony in favor of the Academy, by saying of it that "it 
had established a public character ' ' ; and Thomas Walker was 
elected President of the Board, in place of the late Erastus 
Clark. 

. For eight years (1828 to 1836) there is no entry whatever 
on the academic records, and these eight years cover the larger 
part of Mr. Prentice's service. It is to be inferred from this 
silence that they were unruffled years of prosperity, and that 
the trustees found no occasion for interference. In 1832, how- 
ever, the school was broken up by the prevalence of the cholera, 
which caused great consternation, and suspended business as 
well as schools. The whole academic building, on account of 
its isolation, was devoted to the purposes of a hospital. The 
court room, however, was not wholly abandoned to the 
cholera patients. A regular term of the Vice Chancellor's 
Court was duly opened for business, by proclamation of the 
Clerk acting as Crier, to the astonishment, doubtless, of various 
patients lying there whose thoughts were probably concerned 
about a very different tribunal. They certainly were neither 
clients nor practitioners at this one; and in the absence of 
all seekers after equity in its worldly forms, even potent in- 
junctions, the Court, after the regular call of the calendar, was 
as solemnly adjourned as it had been opened. It is probably 
the only instance of the business of a term being transacted in 
a cholera hospital. After the Court adjourned, it informally 
examined the cases of the patients without pretending to any 
jurisdiction, and what was quite satisfactory, without catching 
the disease. When the cholera disappeared, it was found to 
be one melancholy and mysterious result of its ravages, that 
all the academic library had disappeared with it. It is much 
more painful to record that one of the most efficient Trustees 
of the Academy, then a Senator of the Oneida District, Wil- 
liam H. Maynard, was cut down in his place of honorable ele- 
vation by the same destroyer. To Hamilton College, however, 
more particularly than to the Utica Academy, belongs the 
grateful duty of conferring eulogy upon Mr. Maynard; and I 



Addresses 93 

will venture so far only as to say, that both united cannot too 
highly exalt the memory of a man in whom education ever 
found an ardent and judicious friend, from its lowest mani- 
festation in the district school, through all its grades, to the 
highest reach of scholarly attainment. 

In January, 1836, Messrs. Anthon, Aiken, Piatt and Hunt 
having vacated their places as trustees by removal from the 
city, and Mr. Maynard being deceased, WilHam J. Bacon, 
Theodore S. Gold, Charles A. Mann, Thomas R. Walker and 
James Watson Williams were chosen Trustees. Mr. Bacon 
declined. It w^as altogether the greatest single change that 
had ever been made in the Board from its first charter organiza- 
tion. Those who retired were active and influential men, two 
of them divines of high repute. Mr. Hunt was a gentleman of 
education, and most of his life a banker, and the father of 
Judge AVard Hunt of this city. All but Dr. Aiken and Mr. 
Piatt are now deceased. 

In December of this year, Mr. Prentice announced his in- 
tention of removing to Geneva to accept a professorship of 
languages in the college there, now Hobart College. Although 
at a subsequent period he was invited to return to the charge 
of the Academy, yet as his resignation now closed his connec- 
tion with it, I would here say that he was a single-minded 
devotee of Greek and Latin, and spent his life in teaching 
them with great diligence and enthusiasm. The first grand 
object of his personal ambition was to possess a Scapula 
Lexicon, the attainment of which was a never failing source of 
pride and satisfaction. He cherished and fondled it as Charles 
Lamb cherished and fondled his old folios, the inestimable 
dregs of the book stalls. I well remember the air of pride and 
paternal feeling which brightened his coimtenance, when he 
first displayed to my wondering eyes this long-coveted treasure. 
His next ambition was a college professorship of languages, 
the attainment of which was the occasion of his relinquishing 
this Academy, where he had spent the best years of his life 
in honorable poverty, struggling for himself and an estima- 
ble famil}^ on a pittance of an income that probably never 



94 James Watson Williams 

exceeded six or eight hundred dohars a year. He was an 
unobtrusive, faithful and indefatigable teacher, and was for 
several years a professor in Hobart College. He resigned that 
position, and returned to this city, where he devoted himself 
to private pupils for a while, and finally returned to Geneva to 
teach a private school, and there died in 1859, at the age of 
seventy. 

In December, 1836, the Rev. Thomas Towel was appointed 
successor to Mr. Prentice. When he assumed the charge I do 
not learn from the records, on which there appears no entry 
until February, 1838, when Ebenezer B. Shearman, who had 
been the Secretary from the first organization of the Board, 
resigned, and Charles A. Mann was selected to succeed him. 

Of Mr. Shearman it is proper to say that he always evinced 
a great interest in the affairs of the Academy, and was from 
the beginning one of its active and efficient Trustees. He was 
a stalwart, portly man, of fine personal presence, a prosperous 
merchant and manufacturer, and an intelligent and influential 
citizen, of no special literary pretensions, but a warm friend of 
education, and particularly of the Academy. 

Mr. Hubbard having resigned, the Rev. Pierre A. Proal, 
rector of Trinity Church, was elected to the vacancy, and the 
Rev. Henry Mandeville, of the Reformed Dutch Church, was 
at the same time chosen to fill the place vacant by the refusal 
of William J. Bacon to accept the appointment, and Dr. Charles 
B. Coventry was chosen to succeed William Williams, who 
had removed from the city. Both Mr. Hubbard and Mr. 
Williams long survived this date, but do not appear any more 
in the management of the Academy. They were both worthy 
of being commemorated as gentlemen of good name and high 
standing, and of that character to give a fair repute to what- 
ever they were associated with. Mr. Williams was, in his day, 
one of the most active and liberal men in the community, en- 
gaged in all enterprises of local interest, educational, political 
and religious. His personal appearance was very prepossess- 
ing, and he was a man of attractive and popular manners. 
His later years were clouded by adversity and infirmity, partly 



Addresses 95 

the result of over-activity and enterprise. Mr. Hubbard was 
a very genial, tender and pure-hearted man ; a lawyer, and the 
occupant of various posts of civil distinction; liberal, right- 
minded, shunning all pretension and fulfilling all his duties 
with a quiet modesty that sometimes seemed to be reluctance. 

A proposition was made to annex the Utica Female Acad- 
emy, under the charge of Miss Urania E. Sheldon, as the 
female department, in case Miss Sheldon should consent. It 
is a suitable place here to say that female pupils had from time 
to time been taught in the Academy, as well in the languages, 
as in other branches of instruction. Miss Sheldon very wisely 
declined this, as it was likely to be a partnership productive 
only of disappointment at least, and, probably, of great dis- 
advantage to her school, which succeeded very well without 
any such dubious male entanglements. 

Mr. Towel found it necessary to suggest that some new 
rules might be devised for the government of the Academy; 
probably for the purpose of defining the relative positions of 
the principal and the assistant teacher whom he regarded as 
fractious, and whose influence, he asserted, tended to dis- 
countenance the classical department as a useless appendage 
to a school, and to glorify arithmetic and English grammar as 
the only fit subjects for boyish ambition. Voluminous com- 
munications from both contestants are on the files. The com- 
mittee to which these were referred for consideration concluded 
that a new organization was necessary; and to make a clear 
field, both the Principal and Assistant resigned their places. 
At the same time Mr. Gold resigned his position as trustee, and 
Charles P. Kirkland was selected to succeed him, but declined. 
A new code of by-laws was reported, among which was one 
disallowing the use of translations to classical students, but re- 
quiring the Principal to make comparisons of the best transla- 
tions with the original authors. 

Mr. Towel, after leaving the Academy, established a school 
for girls in Chenango County, I believe, and afterwards removed 
it to Long Island, where he continued it, with or without some 
parochial charge, until the period of his death within the past 



96 James Watson Williams 

year. He wanted the pluck, as Englishmen call it, to maintain 
his superiority as the Principal against a spirited and antago- 
nistic assistant, and the tact and spirit requisite to manage boys. 
His long service as the head of a school for girls, shows that he 
did not lack for good qualities as an instructor, and a resolu- 
tion of the Trustees certified to his excellence as a scholar, and 
his competency as a teacher. 

In April, 1838, Mancer M. Backus, a former pupil of Mr. 
Prentice, and who was just graduated at the age of twenty, 
was made Principal, at a salary of eight hundred dollars. He 
first had for his assistant, W. W. Williams, who had been as- 
sistant to Mr. Prentice and Mr. Towel; and, in the junior de- 
partment, Mr. Harlow Hawley. Mr. Williams remained in 
his position no longer than August. He had been a teacher 
for twenty years, and had given up a popular private school 
to become an assistant in the Academy. He was skeptical 
about the languages, — and other things; enthusiastic about 
the English elemental studies ; and ambitious of the superiority 
of his own department, which he claimed to be the mainstay of 
the whole fabric, — Charter, Trustees, Principal, and all. 

In January, 1839, Mr. Edward Bright (now a Baptist clergy- 
man of distinction) was chosen trustee in place of Mr. Gold, 
resigned. The annual report makes a melancholy show of 
apparatus, the inventory recording one compass and a set 
of globes as the only items. But as a compensation for this 
lack of the illustrative implements of science, a teacher of music 
was now first appointed; and George R. Perkins, who was 
probably the only man of his years who could honestly say that 
he had studied up to the latest advanced posts of mathe- 
matical science, was appointed Mathematical Professor; and 
Mr. William A. Barber, teacher of English. To improve the 
sorry inventory, the trustees appropriated the interest of cer- 
tain mortgages for the purchase of books and apparatus. 

In 1840, under the new organization, the school was in such 
high condition that a call was made for more room. New 
apparatus was obtained at a cost of three hundred and fifty 
dollars, and there was now the unprecedented force of five 



Addresses 97 

teachers. As the academic building was not enlarged, it is 
probable that more room continued to be a want, until in the 
course of a year or two it was found that it would be a 
superfluity. 

In 1 841, Henry J. Turner was engaged to teach French, 
and T. W. Dwight became an assistant classical teacher. 
Such an appointment became necessary in consequence of the 
failing health of the Principal, which compelled him to resign 
in January, 1841. 

Mr. Backus was a graduate of Columbia College, with the 
highest honors; which implied, of course, a thorough training 
under that eminent classical teacher and professor, the late 
Charles Anthon, as well as great proficiency in the general 
curriculum of studies in that institution. He was young for 
the charge, but ardent and ambitious ; and gave a new for- 
ward spring to the Academy, which, under his auspices, as- 
sisted as he was by Prof. Perkins as mathematical teacher, 
reached the highest state of prosperity that was ever attained 
under the old regime; numbering a hundred and fifteen pupils. 
His health was not sufficient to respond to his energetic dis- 
position ; and after about three years, he was under the neces- 
sity of seeking relief in a change of vocation, and found a 
retreat amidst sables and buffalo skins in Maiden Lane, New 
York. 

The same day he resigned, George R. Perkins, his associate, 
was appointed Principal; the first, and, I believe, the only in- 
stance of the appointment to that post of any person who did 
not claim to be qualified in classical studies. In July, Ezekiel 
Bacon having resigned as trustee, John F. Seymour was 
'chosen to the vacancy; and soon after, Mr. Bright having re- 
moved from the city, Simon V. Oley was selected to succeed 
him. 

Judge Ezekiel Bacon was never, I believe, particularly ac- 
tive as a trustee, although his judgment and counsel were no 
doubt often appealed to and depended on. Infirmities early 
assailed him, and prevented him ofttimes from such exertions 
as he would otherwise have cheerfully made in behalf of 



98 James Watson Williams 

education or any good cause. He is now more than ninety-one 
years old, and although confined to his chamber by disease, he 
still retains his interest in affairs, and is a daily reader of the 
newspapers and such new works of interest as revive old mem- 
ories. He is the oldest living graduate of Yale College, and 
probably the solitary remnant of the administration of James 
Madison. 

In July, 1842, George Spencer was appointed classical 
teacher, at a time when the school seemed to be falling off in 
consequence of that department not being adequately filled. 
The Rev. A. Bennett, who died soon after, had been pre- 
viously employed temporarily in the same capacity, and a Mr. 
Biddlecom seems to have succeeded him for a short period. 
Other causes were at work tending to undermine the Academy 
as an independent school. 

About this period, the state of the common schools of the 
city began to excite a degree of attention that resulted in 
a complete reformation of the whole local system. In T.843, 
by virtue of a legislative act demanded by a strong popular 
feeling, they were put under the charge of six commissioners, 
eligible from year to 3^ear in successions of two each year. As 
it was conceded from the first that the schools should not be 
under any partisan domination, the two leading political par- 
ties concurred in establishing a precedent that each of them 
should name one candidate every year, and the two thus nomi- 
nated should be indiscriminately voted for. This precedent, 
which has no legal sanction to inforce it, has in no case been 
positively disturbed, although once or twice the party nomi- 
nations have been disregarded, and some more favored name, 
brought up by a side-wind and informally substituted, has 
commanded the popular vote. 

The first act of the new commissioners, who were Rudolph 
Snyder, Hiram Denio, Spencer Kellogg, Robert T. Hallock, 
Francis Kernan and James Watson Williams, was to institute 
a thorough and faithful examination of the existing schools; 
which resulted in showing a great lack of system, a looseness of 
discipline, a sad deficiency of teaching power and talent, a 



Addresses 99 

miserable niggardliness of compensation, and a perversion and 
misapplication of funds, that proved the necessity of some 
radical change, or a complete abandonment of common educa- 
tion to private enterprise and liberaUty. The city owned but 
three indifferent school buildings, and hired three or four more 
indifferent still, and there were about eleven hundred children 
attending them. The energy _ and influence of the commis- 
sioners soon put a new aspect upon these matters, and it was 
not long before the common schools gained a good repute that 
commended them to general favor. 

In proportion as the new system advanced and ripened, 
the Academy seemed to languish. The ordinary branches of 
an English education could now be taught with such order, 
gradation and efficiency, and so entirely without individual 
expense, that the Academy had little to depend on but its 
Greek and Latin and the higher mathematics. It could still 
train pupils for a collegiate course, and that was all that it 
could do better than the city schools could ; and as its pupils 
diminished, its resources dwindled too, until it became a 
struggle for bare existence. 

In 1843, the Rev. Henry Mandeville being about to remove 
from the city, resigned his place as trustee, at the same time 
relinquishing his pastoral charge of the Reformed Dutch 
Church. He is since deceased. He was an accomplished 
scholar, of fine literary tastes, and the author of an ingenious 
volume on reading and oratory, himself a fine exemplification 
of it, although somewhat stilted and artificial, and too labori- 
ous after effect. He was succeeded as trustee by the late Wil- 
liam Bristol, who evinced zeal and earnestness in his place. 

In 1844, some excitement having arisen respecting certain 
meetings of an equivocal character which were held in the 
academic building, a resolution was passed to close the build- 
ing against all Sunday meetings. Immediately after, some 
alterations and improvements were directed to be made in the 
building in connection with the city authorities, and about six 
hundred dollars were appropriated for the purpose. 

In November of the same year, Mr. Perkins resigned as 



loo James Watson Williams 

Principal, in order to accept an appointment in the State 
Normal School, which was then to be organized, and of which 
soon after, on the death of Mr. Page, he became the Princi- 
pal or Superintendent. The Trustees, on parting with him, 
expressed a high appreciation of his services during his connec- 
tion with the Academy; and the reputation which he after- 
wards acquired as the conductor of the Normal School, and 
otherwise, confirms their good opinion. He is now the incum- 
bent of one of the few offices in the State of a life-long tenure — 
a Regent of the University, — the salary of which, however, is 
not proportioned to its length of days. 

On Mr. Perkins' retirement, Mr. George Spencer was made 
Principal, and Mr. Oren Root (now professor in Hamilton 
College) was selected as the teacher of mathematics, a place 
which he retained only a few months, when he was followed 
by John G. Webb, a graduate of the same institution. 

In 1846, Dr. Coventry having temporarily removed from 
the city to devote himself to a medical professorship. Dr. M. 
M. Bagg succeeded him as one of the Trustees ; and at the same 
time Charles Tracy succeeded Ebenezer B. Shearman, de- 
ceased. Mr. Shearman had been a Trustee from the first, over 
thirty years, during the greater part of which time he was 
Secretary of the Board. Messrs. Tracy and Bagg signalized 
their presence by a report on the existing state of the Academy, 
which obtained a very high compliment. 

In 1847 nothing appears of particular note, and in 1848, 
Mr. Edwin B. Russ, a graduate of the Normal School, was ap- 
pointed an instructor in the English department. The num- 
ber of pupils was now about sixty. 

In the same year Mr. Spencer announced that he had re- 
ceived an application to take charge of the Rome Academy; 
and among other conditions which he proposed in considera- 
tion of declining that, and remaining here, he made it a positive 
point that the "fences should be fixed." Fences, I presume, 
was a general term intended to cover other appurtenances to 
public buildings, which are apt to defy all the arts of house- 
wifery, and unless well guarded by impalements of extra 



Addresses loi 

strength and insurmountability, are great nuisances to sensi- 
tive people. His point was conceded, and the "fences were 
fixed," thanks to his pluck and resoluteness. At the same 
time, Charles P. Kirkland was chosen a Trustee, in the place of 
Thomas Skinner, deceased; Charles B. Coventry re-appointed 
in the place of Charles Tracy, removed from the city; and 
Horace H. Hawley chosen to fill another vacancy, which is not 
defined. Mr. Skinner had been a Trustee under the charter, 
was for some time active in the affairs of the school, and a 
regular attendant at the meetings of the Trustees until within 
a short time before his death, about thirty -five years. He was 
a man of fine natural gifts, improved by education; in his 
early years a lawyer of good standing, promising for his elo- 
quence, particularly before juries; of good family and good 
connections ; but innately disposed to inertness and dormancy 
of his faculties, and to personal indulgences which aggravated 
the constitutional defect; so that by the prime of life, al- 
though still an interesting talker and a shrewd observer, he 
was a discomfited man, and rusted away like an unused weapon, 
despite the excellence of his quality. 

In June, 1849, Mr. Spencer was allowed to employ a sub- 
stitute for a period, and the number of pupils seems to have 
run down to about thirty -five. William C. Johnson was 
chosen a trustee in the place of H. H. Hawley, removed from 
the city, and Edward S. Bray ton in place of Mr. Kirkland, also 
removed. 

In September, 1850, partly from discouragement, and 
principally from ill health, Mr. Spencer resigned his place as 
Principal, and Ellis H. Roberts, a graduate of Yale College, 
was chosen to succeed him. 

The Academy under Mr. Spencer had the reputation of a 
thorough classical school. He was devoted to it, and pos- 
sessed the requisite ambition, perseverance and energy for a 
most valuable teacher, had his health seconded and sustained 
him. He was the author of a grammar which was well com- 
mended by scholars, and was an enthusiast on the subject of 
education, to which he had designed to dedicate his life. 



I02 James Watson Williams 

Although he had a strong classical bias, he was not unapt in 
the sciences, but anxious that they should have a due propor- 
tion of the curriculum. He was of an inventive turn, and 
amused his inforced leisure with some ingenious devices. 
He survived his family a few years, very much broken in 
physical strength, and finally died in Iowa at the age of forty- 
one, in the year 1859. 

Mr. Russ continued to be an assistant under Mr. Roberts 
imtil, in April, 1851, Mr. Roberts resigned. He had not in- 
tended to be a teacher, professionally, but had probably ac- 
cepted the post to allow the Trustees a little time to make 
some permanent appointment. He found a more congenial 
employment in giving daily lessons through the press, as he 
continues to do, in a sheet originally established by the late 
Thomas Walker, an original trustee, first Treasurer, and last 
President of the Academy ; and as he has such an opportunity 
to make a daily blazon of his gifts, I shall offer no comment 
upon a pedagogical interlude in his life. 

On the resignation of Mr. Roberts, David Prentice, a former 
Principal, now a Doctor of Laws, was invited to accept the 
position, but he declined. 

It was now determined to sell to the county, for a Court 
House, the John Street front of the Academy lot, about one 
hundred feet by one hundred and fifteen, on condition, in ad- 
dition to a pecuniary consideration, that the release of the 
remainder should be obtained from the original grantors and 
from the city, so that it might be free of all easements for courts 
and public meetings, which was finally consummated. 

In September, Mr. Kinget was appointed Principal, in place 
of Mr. Newcomb, who seems to have been the successor of Mr. 
Roberts ; but I can give no particular account of them, further 
than that Mr. Newcomb was disabled by sickness from the 
discharge of his duties, and that Mr. Kinget was his substitute 
for the time. 

In April, 185 2, a committee was appointed to confer with the 
School Commissioners respecting some arrangement by which 
the office of Superintendent of Schools and of Principal of 



Addresses 103 

the Academy might be united; and, in August, a plan was 
suggested by the School Commissioners for a connection, to 
consider which a committee was appointed, indued with suffi- 
cient power and with all the disposable funds to complete the 
union, which appears to have been the last act of the Trustees 
under the old Charter. 

In May, 1853, an act of the Legislature provided for an 
arrangement unique, and as yet I believe unimitated, by which 
the School Commissioners became the Trustees of the Academy, 
the life and soul of the old corporation, virtute ojficu, preserv- 
ing the venerable Charter, and binding its vitality to that of 
the city itself, forever securing the pestilent one hundred dol- 
lars' income beyond a perad venture, and converting an old 
close corporation into one controllable by a popular vote. 

By this arrangement, the venerable Thomas Walker, 
President of the Board, who had witnessed the birth, now 
witnessed the death, of the old regime, and was functus officio; 
but he fortunately had constitution enough to weather the 
change, and to survive it for several years, being the longest 
lived of all the first Trustees. He was a man of great sim- 
plicity of character; of good taste and judgment; never ob- 
trusive, but always firm to his integrity and his principles of 
conduct ; going at even pace with his contemporaries in all 
measures of private and public advancement, but not schem- 
ing hazardously or in the spirit of adventure; a true con- 
servative, the highest praise; a safe, trustworthy and most 
estimable man. Mr. Oley also deserves to be commemorated 
as a man of humble pretensions, but of single-minded devotion 
to his trusts ; open, frank and generous. Mr. Mann, as one of 
the School Commissioners, was revived as a trustee; but 
since the day of his election as trustee and Secretary, he had 
been the active soul of the Academy, as he was of all he had 
to do with; and his handwriting records the last act of the 
Board, which was an extinguisher of its old flickering close- 
corporate existence, snuffing it out as a candle. 

In February, 1854, the new organization was accomplished 
by the choice of Edmund A. Wetmore (Chairman of the School 



I04 James Watson Williams 

Commissioners) as President, and Daniel S. Heffron (Superin- 
tendent of the Schools) as Secretary. 

Mr. Weld, a graduate of Brown University, was selected 
for Principal of the Academy, with three female teachers for 
assistants, and rules were framed for the regulation of the 
school. Mr. William Tracy, a School Commissioner of old 
standing, and of great efficiency and earnestness, to which he 
added high cultivation and literary acquirements, having re- 
moved to New York, Henry H. Fish was selected by the Com- 
mon Council to succeed him as a trustee. By subscriptions 
and by appropriations made by the Regents of the University, 
the school apparatus was increased to the value of nearly 
eight hundred dollars. The standard of education was high, 
and pupils went to college with qualifications exceeding the 
collegiate standard. In December, 1857, Mr. Weld resigned, 
and the present Principal, a graduate of Harvard, succeeded 
him. 

In 1859, a considerable expense was incurred in improving 
the old academic building, w^hich was no longer a resort for 
courts, town meetings and the general public, but was strictly 
confined to its legitimate purpose of a place for instructing 
youth. It was not devoted, either, to one sex ; but following 
the example of half a century or so previous, it was again a 
school for girls as well as boys, as it still is ; and if it sends out 
as fine specimens of spinsters, wives, mothers, widows and 
grandmothers, as some of the old stamp whom I remember, it 
will do the community a memorable service. 

In 1865, the old building, which cost the last generation so 
much effort and money to construct, and the subsequent one 
so much to refit, was destroyed by some incendiary hand, 
with all its outfit of books, apparatus and furniture ; and the 
school was again exposed to the well-meant but harassing, 
hospitality of a Court House, where, with unsuitable and in- 
terrupted accommodations, the school has worried its way 
along until now it has found a permanent lodgment in this 
capacious, well-designed and, for its purpose, seemingly per- 
fect building ; and a monument to the liberality of the citizens 



Addresses 105 

who have voluntarily incurred its expense, to the Superin- 
tendent, Trustees and Architect who planned it, and to those 
who have contributed by their skill and handicraft in con- 
structing it. 

For about ten years the present Principal has been in 
charge, greatly I believe, to the satisfaction of all interested in 
its prosperity. It is the crowning school of our system — a 
system of regular gradations from infancy to manhood, af- 
fording thorough instruction in all the elemental branches of 
learning to all who will devote the necessary years to their 
acquirement, and have the patience to go up the ladder round 
by round. What education and everything else in this countr}^ 
wants is thoroughness. Submission to training is particularly 
irksome to our temperament, and we are too readily satisfied 
with smattering superficiality. We are indeed under a sort of 
necessity, in our rapid growth, of premature activity in all 
the departments of life. Apprenticeship and training are our 
special abhorrence. We are unwilling to allow a third of life 
to be spent in preparation for the skillful and economical use 
of the rest of it. Uncultivated talents do our work after a 
sort, in a loose spendthrift way, and we have such a profusion 
of them that we are wasteful. In the professions, we abandon 
old beaten laborious tracks that lead to skill and perfection, 
and choose the short cuts of smattering and presumption. In 
the trades, we serve no regular apprenticeship, but depend on 
our own untutored ingenuity to accomplish mastery. If it is 
astonishing how much we have done in these rough, extem- 
poraneous ways, it is equally astonishing how much we have 
allowed to be indifferently and badly done; and more aston- 
ishing still, that we have not only contented ourselves with it, 
but somewhat vaunted upon it, as the evidence of our superior 
ability to the rest of the world. 

In this school, in addition to the more advanced branches of 
an English education, have always been taught the languages 
commonly called dead; and always may they be taught here! 
If Greek and Latin, and what they have inspired, could be 
extinguished, the life of all modern literature would be 



io6 James Watson Williams 

extinguished too. All human knowledge in all civilized coun- 
tries is vitalized and made universal by these dead languages. 
Dead! Yet they speak; they will live forever: so long as 
tongues talk, or pens write, in any language of civilization, 
they must live. Whoever strikes to the root of any modern 
language will discover it grounded in and nourished by the 
rich compost of the Greek and Latin, and their juices pervad- 
ing the stem, the branches, the leaves and the blossoms that 
spring from that root; and whoever seeks the finest and per- 
fectest models of all that is eloquent, all that is poetical, all 
that is logical and all that is philosophical, will find them in 
those languages most consummate, almost inimitable. In one 
sense they are dead, and happy in that sense is their death. 
It has fixed them forever; crystallized them in their state of 
parity and perfection, and freed them from the contamina- 
tions, fluctuations and impurities that are constantly tainting 
and incrusting living languages. 

But the eminent advantages of an acquaintance with them 
do not require for their sufficient attainment a sacrifice of 
other acquirements; nor is the excess of devotion which is 
paid to them in the classical schools of England worthy of our 
imitation. The critical knowledge which is the result of high 
scholarship is not requisite to a fair comprehension and enjoy- 
ment of ancient literature, nor indispensable to its general 
utility. I. understand the objections and criticisms of such 
eminent men as Mill and Lowe to be aimed, not against a 
reasonable pursuit of the old languages, but against the undue 
and exacting prominence which they maintain in the routine 
of the favorite schools and universities of Great Britain. It is 
not likely that the useful sort of mental discipline which is 
acquired by the study of them, will be as readily acquired by 
the study of anything else. They are a fixed pattern for 
grammar, for rhetoric and for correct taste in composition ; 
and as mere disciplinary studies their place in a curriculum 
can not be filled by any known substitute of equal efficiency. 
The mere ability to read and enjoy the old classics is not the 
sole or the chief result of scholarship ; but the habit of mind, 



Addresses 107 

the training of certain of its faculties, the discipline of the 
memory and of the taste, which are acquired in the pursuit — 
these constitute the great and incalculable result as respects 
their educational value. 

I ought not to conclude without saying that among those 
who illustrate by their subsequent life the old Utica Academy 
as their nursing mother, in such a conspicuous way as to be 
publicly distinguished, are names that may be mentioned 
for their distinction without any special canvass of their 
characters. In this way I may speak of James D. Dana, dis- 
tinguished for his scientific acquirements and his popular text- 
books, and for having crystallized the science of Mineralogy, 
particularly that branch of it known as Crystallography; of 
Samuel Wells Williams, whose publications and official posi- 
tions with respect to Chinese affairs and history are of high 
fame; of Harrison G. O. Dwight, whose long services as 
a missionary in Turkey shed a lustre upon his Hfe that is re- 
flected upon the old Academy. 

A name may be found on the early academic records that 
suggests such grave historic doubts as should be solved, if 
possible, before they grow to the magnitude of the contro- 
versy not yet decided, respecting the birth place of Homer. 
That name is Horace Se5nTiour, who is numbered among the 
classical students of 1822 or 1823. Who was he? Except for 
the similarity of sound with another name which naturally 
connects itself with the family name of Seymotu", it might be 
dismissed as the affix of some inferior and obscure pupil who 
sheds no lustre upon the academic annals. Happily a diligent 
research, aided by a personal memory of contemporaneous 
events of that early day, enables me to solve the mystery, and 
save the waste of ink and guess-work on a curious inquiry. 
Some might suppose that the real name of this juvenile as- 
pirant for academic laurels, might be traced back to that 
Codes "who kept the bridge, in the brave days of old," 

When " none was for a party," 
When " all were for the State " : 



io8 James Watson Williams 

or to the celebrated Horatii embalmed in later Roman history ; 
or to Quintus Flaccus, of lyric and vinous memory; but it 
really goes no farther back than to that eloquent Horatio, 
without a surname, who was "learned enough to speak to a 
ghost" and whose bosom friend, the Prince of Denmark, 
shrewdly advised him that ' ' there were more things in heaven 
and earth than were dreamed of in his philosophy." The 
true name of that pupil is Horatio, — not aspiring to the full 
patrician sonorousness of Horatius, nor descending to the 
pettiness and curtailment of simple Horace, but a suitable 
medium and compromise between venerable antiquity and 
modem degeneracy, — a mediaeval name. The truth of history, 
therefore, requires that the Academy lists, although sworn to, 
should be so amended as to carry with them the name of Ho- 
ratio Seymour, — bis Gubernator, et Presses possibilis, "one of 
the few, the immortal names," connected with the Academy/ 
"that were not bom to die," or even to be obscured by an 
alias. 

There may be others whose names have escaped me, and 
probably there are, for I have had few lists at my command. 
I know there are many who have quietly adorned the circles 
of private life and business, and have acquired a local fame and 
honor that reflect as much real credit upon an alma mater as a 
career of public renown. Sure I am that a more respectable 
catalogue, if a more distinguished one, can not be collected 
from the records of any academy, in proportion to its number 
of pupils, than might be arrayed to vindicate the good repute 
of this. Long may this imposing structure stand, defying 
time, earthquakes and incendiarism, to admit, educate and 
send out the youth of the city to leaven, adorn and elevate all 
the communities in which Providence may fix their sphere. 



THE PASSION FOR RICHES; AND ITS INFLUENCE 

UPON OUR SOCIAL, LITERARY AND 

POLITICAL CHARACTER. 



A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN S ASSOCIATION 
OF THE CITY OF UTICA, FEBRUARY, 1838. 

Hie, nuUo fine beatus, 



Componit opes, gazis inhians; 
Et congesto pauper in auro est. 

Seneca. Hercules Furens. 



109 



Utica, February 19, 1838. 

James Watson Williams, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — The undersigned, having been appointed by the 
Young Men's Association of this city a Committee, to request 
a copy, for publication, of your Lecture delivered before them 
on the 7th inst., take great pleasure in the performance of their 
duty. The most of us were personally present at its delivery, and 
are therefore able to speak, from personal knowledge, of its merits. 
From the style and manner of the Lecture, we consider it one cal- 
culated to reflect honor on its author, and the Body before whom, 
it was delivered, and, from the valuable sentiments set forth in it, 
calculated to do good to the community. Entertaining these opin- 
ions of your Lecture, we venture to express a hope that you will 
not forbid its publication. 

, We are, very respectfully, 

Your obedient servants, 

Ward Hunt, 
E. Maynard, 
G. S. Dana, 
H. Seymour. 



THE PASSION FOR RICHES; AND ITS INFLUENCE 

UPON OUR SOCIAL, LITERARY AND 

POLITICAL CHARACTER. 

MAN is naturally desirous of whatever confers distinction, 
or gives him influence and power. The lust of superior- 
ity, either fancied or real, positive or comparative, distinguishes 
the race. Some delight to soar above their fellows in the 
achievements of intellectual exertion. These become the 
masters of science and of art; and receive willing homage 
throughout the realms where reason and fancy have their 
dominion. Some seek their elevation by means of those in- 
fluences which govern men through their necessities, their 
appetites and their passions. Some choose to pursue those 
distinctions which, with fine propriety, attend the display of 
extraordinary virtue and integrity; and some, like him who 
fired the magnificent Temple of Diana, those which exalt even 
crime, and make its perpetrator infamously famous. Thus, 
in one way or another, commendable or reprehensible, all, 
with rare exceptions, and each in his several sphere, covet 
consideration and preeminence. 

It is not difficult to decide what kind of reputation, if com- 
monly sought after, would most advance the general happi- 
ness. It would undoubtedly be that which follows the 
exercise of the virtues. Unfortunately, however, such is not 
the prime object of ordinary ambition. That which commonly 
impels men to enterprise and sways their conduct, is of a less 
noble character. True, it implies the practice of some of the 
virtues ; but it also involves the free indulgence of some of the 
frailties. Thus, to acquire wealth and the advantages it con- 
fers upon its possessor, it is not industry, prudence, frugality 



1 1 2 James Watson Williams 

and uprightness that alone conduce to that end. These gen- 
erally lead but to a competency. Mere good fortune and the 
accidents of position out of the question, — the acquisition of 
great riches is too often the result of sacrifices which no truly 
good man can conscientiously make ; sacrifices of generosity, of 
the obligations of charity and humanity, of exact equity and 
of the duties justly owing to society. There was much truth 
in the remark that was made of one who had acquired a for- 
tune of millions : ' ' that no man could have heaped up so much 
who had done his duty to his family, his friends, and his 
country as he went along." 

The unrestrained desire for riches is the fruitful mother of 
much that is noxious ; which wealth possessed does not remedy, 
nor wealth distributed set right. I say the desire for riches; 
because it is a just distinction, and one too often overlooked, 
which is made between the desire and the object of it. "The 
love of money is the root of all evil ' ' ; not money, but that ex- 
travagant fondness for it which is apt to absorb the soul to the 
neglect of whatever is becoming to humanity. That wealth 
has its advantages, both intrinsically and in the influence it 
carries with it, is not to be denied nor doubted. In truth, 
there is nothing, except the more exalted gifts of nature or of 
education, that can aspire to equal it. It gives to those who 
are indifferently blessed, both by nature and education, an 
advantage which even these often fail to render. It" com- 
mands respect and weight where other endowments are in- 
effectual to secure them; and in the character of an auxiliary 
and a minister, its value is inestimable. "A full purse never 
lacks friends." 

The possession of riches is more especially coveted by the 
mass of mankind, not only because it gives them a degree of 
consideration to which their genuine worth of character would 
not always justify them in aspiring, but because it is within 
the grasp of common ability. They seek it as an adventitious 
aid towards the eminence they would reach. The most lofty 
and desirable distinctions can be acquired by only a few ; and 
they are bestowed principally upon extraordinary genius and 



Addresses 113 

eminent public services. The majority of men are therefore 
restricted to distinctions of a less elevation. Most of this 
class arise not so much from mental superiority, as from the 
accidents of birth and f ortime ; or from the constant and suc- 
cessful direction of middling ability to some favorite end. Of 
all worldly ends, the attainment of wealth seems to be the most 
decidedly attractive. There is a pleasure in the accumula- 
tion, a pleasure in the use, and a pleasure in the mere possession 
of it. It is, besides, an influential instrument ; and in the hands 
of the shrewd or the aspiring, stands in place of other endow- 
ments intrinsically more valuable. 

When we consider that to possess riches is not generally to 
possess happiness, it appears singular that the ardent love of 
them should be so universal as it is. But the same thing may 
be said of all distinctions. They are of themselves far from 
yielding, to a rightly balanced mind, much real enjoyment. 
The most happy among men are they who make contentment 
with that they have, occupy the place of desire for that they 
have not. But in the same proportion that they accomplish 
this, they seem to sink in the estimation of the world. They 
glide through life with a "velvet pace," unnoticed and un- 
envied ; imless their quiet and unobtrusive pursuits, like those 
of Newton and Locke, are of that exalted intellectual char- 
acter that gives them fame, while their real object is only to 
benefit mankind. The ambitious, the restless, the insatiate, 
and the insatiable ; they who seek constantly to improve their 
condition, however prosperous it may be ; are generally those 
who obtain the greatest share of observation and of envy. 
To be observed and envied, is to be distinguished; and that 
is enough to satisfy the cravings of a common ambition. 

Perhaps, however, this is a very unsatisfactory mode of 
philosophizing upon the passion for riches. It may be that 
it attributes too much to a fondness for consideration and in- 
fluence, and therefore for the means which secure them; and 
too little to the very common and very inexplicable affection 
for wealth simply because it gratifies avarice, and to the 
equally common but less singular attachment for it because it 



TI4 James Watson Williams 

ministers to an easy, luxurious, or extravagant life. But to 
whatever causes we may refer its existence, that it exists, and 
is one of the most violent impulses of human action, is not to 
be denied. It sways the mass of mankind as if it were an in- 
born principle. Rem, quocimque modo, rem — wealth, no mat- 
ter how, but wealth — are the syllables that govern the world. 
The temple of mammon is thronged with constant and most 
devoted worshippers; and if the power of an idol may be 
measured by the numbers that flock to his shrine and pay the 
most abject homage, the blind and lame and winged god 
Plutus may, of all others, confidently claim the preeminence. 
Most men would rather be perplexed with the treasures of 
Croesus than enjoy the poverty and the happiness of Solon. 

In this country, wealth imparts an influence which nothing 
else but talents and station can command. We have none of 
those differences of birth and degree which elsewhere divide the 
community into artificial ranks. Here, nothing is hereditary, 
except physical disease. Neither office, nor patronage, nor 
estates, descend from generation to generation. Every one is 
wisely left to be the artificer of his own fortune. It is this cir- 
cumstance, perhaps, that strengthens in our citizens the ten- 
dency they all seem to have towards the attainment of riches. 
They do not all reach the end they aspire to ; but the aspira- 
tion is of itself a sufficient evidence of the disposition. Com- 
fort and competency seem to have no charms for us. No 
sooner do we attain these than we grasp at opulence and 
luxury. 

Not to pursue, however, any longer these general reflections, 
I propose to examine into the influence which the passion for 
wealth exerts upon our social, literary, and political character. 
It is a wide field to be traversed in the scope of a single lecture, 
such as your time and patience would tolerate, or my own 
leisure and ability enable me to prepare. But we may collect, 
even in a hurried passage through it, somewhat that will not 
be entirely uninstructive or unentertaining. 

I do not intend when I speak of the "passion for riches," 
that moderate desire which every man properly feels to place 



Addresses 115 

himself in an independent position ; but that appetite for gain 
which borders upon avarice, if it does not become avarice it- 
self. Thus understood, it may be affirmed that it materially 
affects our social condition, and that unfavorably. It is essen- 
tially a selfish passion ; and social life demands constant sacri- 
fices of selfishness, not only seemingly, but really. "It is a 
poor centre of a man's actions — himself,'' says Lord Bacon; 
and yet, poor as it is, it is the centre towards which the indus- 
try and care of those who seek riches perpetually converge. 
The devotee of money is commonly so much occupied with his 
prime object, that the social pleasures and duties have little 
charm for him. While he should be contributing his share to 
human enjoyment, he is more willingly employed in gloating 
over his gains, or in devising new means of augmentation. 
Business devours him; not that business simply which is 
necessary to the support, the occupation, and the innocency of 
life, and the securing of all its reasonable gratifications; but 
that which consists in heaping up treasure to gratify a sordid 
ambition or pamper extravagant appetites. He forgets that 
"riches are for spending; and spending for honor and good 
actions"; and oftentimes nothing but a fear of the world's 
contumely extorts from him those doles and donatives which 
are demanded to support good neighborhood and the institu- 
tions which charity and public spirit are ever forward in estab- 
lishing. These, in truth, depend, for their foundation and 
continuance, not upon any munificencce of his, so long as 
he lives to fondle his treasures. It is the men of middling 
means who contribute the most, and most disproportionably 
too, to those public endowments and private charities which 
lighten the hearts, by administering to the necessities, of the 
wretched; or elevate the race by encouragement, sympathy, 
and instruction. 

But a want of liberality and of interest in the affairs of 
society is not his only failing. If we note candidly the steps by 
which opulence is reached, we cannot but confess that it is not 
tmfrequently by practices which, though by the courtesy of 
the world they are called fair and honest, will not bear the test 



ii6 James Watson Williams 

of a searching and severe morality. It is by hard bargains; 
by exorbitant exactions; by shifts of trade; by mercenary 
alliances; by concealment or exaggeration of the truth; by 
cunning and overreaching; by a constant watchfulness of 
chances ; by gambling in stocks ; by monopolies of the neces- 
saries of life; by the im worthy exercise of influence and 
power ; by taking advantage of the necessities of others when 
true nobleness would render as an unpurchased favor what is 
too frequently granted from the mere impulse of a gainful 
propensity. "The ways to enrich," says the same great 
writer before quoted, "are many, but most of them foul." 
' ' There is rarely any rising, but by a commixture of good and 
evil arts." "Honesty," says Selden, "sometimes keeps a man 
from growing rich"— but "he that will give himself to all 
manner of ways to get money, may be rich." A fine poet 
corroborates these remarks, and adds an excellent moral : 

"Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd; 
Or dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave, 
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. 
But for one end, one much neglected use, 
Are riches worth your care; (for nature's wants 
Are few, and without opulence supplied;) 
This noble end is, to produce the soul; 
To show the virtues in their fairest light ; 
To make humanity the minister 
Of bounteous Providence ; and teach the breast 
The generous luxury the gods enjoy." 

Wealth hides many defects of character, and glosses over 
the arts by which it was attained. After one has reached it, 
unless it be by the most glaring knavery, we do not often look 
back to the 

"base degrees 
By which he did ascend." 

If we knew how much of many fortunes is the fruit of a con- 
cealed sort of iniquity, which the common consent of the 
world rather countenances than condemns ; and were capable 



Addresses 117 

of appreciating justly the tendency of those dispositions which 
accompany the successful pursuit of wealth ; a regard for the 
true happiness of society would prompt every good citizen to 
restrain the passion within the limits that wisdom prescribes. 
We should check it, as we feel bound to check the violent phys- 
ical passions. Every man stands in need of a competency, 
and no man in need of anything more. It may be acquired too 
without the indulgence of any vicious ambition. It is the 
medium which Agur desired as most conducive to innocency 
of life; deprecating the extremes of poverty and riches as 
equally baneful to his happiness. It is precisely the point 
where human aspirations after worldly enjoyments should end ; 
but it is precisely the point where the itch for affluence, which 
is falsely supposed to yield superior felicity, begins. What is 
a competency, however, depends upon state and circumstances. 
"That," says Selden, "which is a competency for one man, is 
not enough for another, no more than that which will keep 
one man warm, will keep another man warm ; one man can go 
in doublet and hose, when another man cannot be without a 
cloak, and yet have no more clothes than is necessary for him." 
If the object of pursuing wealth were profitably and gen- 
erously to use, rather than sordidly to heap it, we should not 
have so great cause for wonder at the pains, anxieties, em- 
barrassments, and sacrifices voluntarily undergone by its 
votaries; and society would be somewhat compensated, for 
the evils which the passion begets, by the willing and prudent 
distribution of the gains of the prosperous. But to accumu- 
late, is the natural tendency of the passion; and the mo- 
tives for it are various. Some hoard for the benefit of their 
posterity; some for the gratification of their own appetites; 
some are saving and niggardly all their lives with no other 
apparent design but to make a splendid display of generosity 
in their testaments. The liberality which should have con- 
stituted the adornment and duty of their whole existence, is 
reserved to crown their exits with a magnificent testimonial of 
their devotion to some favored object ; hitherto, perhaps, lan- 
guishing into obscurity for want of their timely benefactions. 



ii8 James Watson Williams 

It may be thought somewhat singular advice to come from 
one whom Pope calls the "meanest" of mankind; but it is 
good advice notwithstanding : ' ' Defer not charities till death ; 
for certainly if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so, is rather 
liberal of another man's than of his own." 

The love of riches seems to ' ' grow with that it feeds on " ; 
and, long indulged, it degenerates into the wretched vice of 
avarice, the frequent frailty of old age. "There are people," 
says La Bruyere, "who are badly housed, badly lodged, badly 
clothed and more badly fed; who sustain the rigors of the 
seasons; who deprive themselves of the society of men, and 
pass their days in solitude; who suffer from the present, the 
past and the future; whose life is a continual penance, and 
who have thus discovered the secret of going the most thorny 
way to perdition. ' ' One would judge that this forcible portrait 
was designed to represent Troglodytes or Lazzaroni at the 
least. "These," however, continues La Bruyere, "are mis^ 
ers." They are men of wealth, who exhibit the prevailing 
attachment to it in its most palpable and disgusting form. 
It is no caricature of them; and, with a proper softening down, 
many of its features are characteristic of those worshippers of 
mammon whom the world respects. 

There are periods when this insatiable thirst for gold is 
aggravated into an epidemical disorder that pervades all 
classes of society. Its effects, then, upon the social system, are 
apparent and alarming. Every one feels himself a Midas, 
endued with the power of transmuting all he touches into gold. 
The brilliant gloss with which the first gleam of distant afflu- 
ence tinges every thing that the eager imagination seizes upon, 
deludes men to indulge a thousand glittering expectations, 
raised but to be mocked and blasted. The high and the 
low, the rich and the poor, the industrious and the dissolute ; all, 
excited by this bewildering passion, neglect or abandon their 
present callings to launch out upon a deceitful current, with 
the depths and shoals of which they are unfamiliar ; confident 
that it will bear them to an El Dorado that has no real existence. 
Multitudes are wrecked by the way; and the ruins of hitherto 



Addresses 119 

thriving business, of respectable competency, and frequently 
of worth, integrity and character, that attend upon their dis- 
astrous career, are melancholy illustrations of the truth of the 
saying — "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a 
snare.'" In such times, men run headlong to sacrifice the 
substance of which they are already secure, that they may 
grasp an illusory phantom, and be mocked with a shadow. 
They involve themselves deeply, perhaps irretrievably, in em- 
barrassments ; and mortgage the industry and hopes of their 
remaining years to extinguish incumbrances which Fortune, 
who is not to be won except by assiduous and persevering 
wooing, has buckled on their backs as badges of their reckless 
folly. 

The tendency of all this is to disturb society, to unsettle 
habits, and to humble self-respect. Who can tell how many 
a wretched victim of intemperance, of idleness, of shame, of 
abject poverty, has been reduced to that humiliation by the 
disappointment of his senseless and deluded aspirations for 
sudden opulence? How many a miserable man, still upright 
in his misery and virtuous in his misfortunes, has been broken 
down in his spirit and his native dignity of feeling, by the 
prostration of designs formed for his enrichment and eleva- 
tion ; the only fruit of which is a burthen of perplexities and 
discouragements that the energies of a life-time cannot effectu- 
ally alleviate? 

I have said that the passion for riches is essentially a selfish 
passion. The remark was made in reference to its influence 
upon our social character. It is also an engrossing passion. 
In its most violent degree, it absorbs the mind to the exclusion 
of every thing else, intellectually; and, physically, it often 
stints the body not only of reasonable indulgences, but of 
wholesome sustenance. This is an extreme, however, which 
we rarely witness; and to make use of it to exemplify the 
usual effect of the appetite, were to color it far too highly. 
Downright misers, as La Bruyere has pourtrayed them, are 
happily very few ; avaricious men are more common ; and it 
may be affirmed very generally of those who are affected by a 



120 James Watson Williams 

marked desire for accumulation, that, in proportion to its 
strength, they are disposed or constrained to curtail not only 
physical but intellectual enjoyment. It is this characteristic 
of the passion that is to be considered as bearing upon our 
literary character. 

The paths of knowledge, to those who have tasted the 
beauty and variety of the delights which constantly spring 
up about them, are as pleasant and peaceful as are the ways 
of virtue to the good. So strong is this impression of their de- 
lightfulness, and of its perennial and unpalling endurance, that 
it has become a part of the belief of those who look forward to 
happiness in an after life, that it will consist, next to the 
presence of the Deity, in the fruition of a constantly expanding 
intelligence. There is much even in this world which they 
burn to penetrate, but which is wrapped in darkness to th6 
eye of the wisest and most profound. Theirs can hardly be 
deemed a fanciful creed who believe that a hereafter is to un- 
fold to their ardent minds not only the mysteries of the present, 
but the intellectual glories of the future. Here, though we do 
but "know in part," yet this partial knowledge inflames us to 
seek the more earnestly for that fullness of intelligence which 
is thought to be reserved to crown the felicity of our coming 
existence. The pursuit of wisdom is constantly enforced in 
the sacred writings, and by the teachings of philosophy, as the 
noblest and most congenial to human happiness, temporal or 
eternal; and it has no more constant or powerful antagonist 
than the love of mammon. Solomon felt this when he be- 
sought of God only wisdom; but God, out of regard to his 
moderation, rewarded him with the two-fold distinction of the 
greatest wisdom and the greatest wealth. 

A humble condition in point of pecuniary resources, and 
even poverty itself, has always proved the most faithful foster- 
mother of genius and intellectual exertion. I need not labor 
to show this by illustrations. "Wealth," says Jean Paul, 
"weighs heavier on talent than poverty. Pressed to death 
beneath mountains of gold and thrones, lies perhaps buried 
many an intellectual giant. When into the flames of youth. 



Addresses 121 

the warmer faculties being in their fullest glow, is poured the 
oil of riches, little of the Phoenix will be left but lifeless ashes ; 
and only some Goethe has the vigor not to bum his wings 
shorter at the sun of Fortune. Not for much money," con- 
tinues he, "would the present poor historical professor have 
had much money in his youth. Fate deals with poets as we 
deal with birds, and darkens the cage of the songster until he 
can sing the notes that are played to him." These fine senti- 
ments are introduced by an apostrophe to poverty. "Wel- 
come! so that thou dost not come in one's too late days." 

In a similar strain is the remark of Ockley, a learned student 
of Oriental Literature of the last century, who writes in a 
prison where he was confined for debt, " I have enjoyed more 
true liberty, more happy leisure, and more solid repose, in six 
months here, than in thrice the same number of years before. 
I did always in my judgment give the possession of wisdom 
the preference to that of riches.'' 

Men of letters do not often attain, and seldom aspire to, 
any thing beyond a competency ; although there are instances, 
like Scott and Goethe, of their arriving at handsome fortunes, 
the fruit of their literary labors. Their ambition is not of 
the kind which tends to avarice. It is of an intellectual 
character. Supply the physical necessities of a student, and 
he desires little besides but fame, 

" Nor blames the partial fates if they refuse 
The imperial banquet and the rich attire." 

His delight is not in those avocations which hamper the 
energies and obstruct the developments of the soul; and al- 
though the necessities of life, or the circumstances of his posi- 
tion, may require him to do his part in these, his mind is not 
wedded to them, nor harrassed by the cares and fears which 
the cupidity of gain begets in other men. 

We rarely find wealth praised by the poets ; although the 
wealthy were their patrons. Their eulogiums and wishes are 
confined to an easy and dignified independence. The life of 
the husbandman and the shepherd appears to be their beau 



122 James Watson Williams 

ideal of happiness; and husbandmen and shepherds, we all 
know, are less distinguished for affluence than for contentment. 
Theocritus, Virgil and Cowley are eloquent in their praises of 
the pastoral life; and Horace, rich in the modest retirement 
of his country seat and the applause of his co temporaries, 
could unreluctantly decline place and emolument at the hand 
of Augustus. 

To follow wealth to the greatest advantage, it is as neces- 
sary to be devoted to it, as to attain excellence in science or 
art, it is requisite that the favorite branch of either should have 
our whole study and ardor. Every thing in which one desires 
to be preeminent must be the occupation of a life. Hence it is 
that they who are attracted by the glitter of gold have little 
leisure, as well as little inclination, for more ennobling pur- 
suits. To add acre to acre, or pound to pound, is as much 
their delight as it is with the literary to increase and display 
their stores of knowledge. 

It is too much the case in this country that we underrate 
scholars and their acquirements ; that is, we are apt to think of 
a man who addicts himself to science and literature, that his 
time might be turned to more profitable account were he 
engaged in some calling that would tend more directly to the 
increase of his fortune. We are all for the practical ; by which 
we mean that which has little to do with mental advancement 
and every. thing with gain. We appear to consider the modi- 
cum of knowledge which enables one to pursue business with 
profit, as all abundant in the way of education; and that 
whatever exceeds that weakens the capacity for the affairs of 
every day life. The consequence is, that shrewdness in turn- 
ing a penny or driving a bargain has become a sort of national 
characteristic. Our enterprise, which is distinguished, is di- 
rected rather to the increase of our opulence than to the eleva- 
tion of our minds. We so much magnify the one that we 
almost overlook the other. We seem to estimate the possess- 
sion of riches as the chief good, and the want of them as a 
crime which should subject those who acknowledge it to the 
same allegorical prison into which Arasmanes was thrown 



Addresses 123 

when he found himself in a country where the people wor- 
shipped only one deity, the God of the Precious Metals; and 
where not to have these was not to have virtue. "What a 
strange — what a barbarous country ! ' ' cried Arasmanes. ' ' Bar- 
barous!" echoed the Prince; "this is the most civilized 
cotintry in the whole world — nay, the whole world acknow- 
ledges it. In no country are the people so rich, and therefore 
so happy. For those who have not money it is, indeed, a bad 
place of residence ; for those who have, it is the land of happi- 
ness itself ! ' ' 

In proportion to our population and our resources, we have 
very few distinguished scholars and authors. The mass of 
those who deem themselves such are rather superficial than 
thorough and accomplished; partly owing to a want of early 
training, and partly to a deficiency of those endowments which 
it is the honor and should be the duty of opulence to found for 
their support and encouragement. The temptations to ex- 
cellence in science and letters are not sufficiently abundant to 
detach men from subordinate pursuits. It will always be thus 
until our citizens have learned that the seductions of affluence 
are not so worthy of their sense or their ambition as the less 
obtrusive attractions of knowledge and wisdom. 

The effects of the same passion are apparent in the general 
neglect of education. True, every one is taught something 
elemental; but many parents, unmindful of the old homely 
maxim, that "learning is better than house and lands," stint 
their children in point of literary accomplishments that the 
savings may be reserved to set them- off with a fortune, which, 
to the uncultivated, generally turns out to be the greatest of 
all misfortunes. Were the gold that is saved to corrupt and 
ruin them, expended in training and furnishing their minds ; 
were they not snatched from their studies in the greenness of 
youth, because a pitiful parsimony is best consulted by cur- 
tailing their intellectual advantages ; we should not only have 
riper scholars, but more finished men. 

This division of the subject, however, cannot now be 
extended. The connection between the passion we are con- 



124 James Watson Williams 

sideling and our literary character is not sufficiently palpable 
to be pourtrayed by hasty strokes. It is a theme that is 
worthy of a more amplified discussion than I am able to bestow 
upon it. But it is one to which our attention should be oftener 
directed than it is. Literary and scientific pursuits eminently 
become a peaceful and thriving nation. They yield enjoy- 
ments and distinctions far more excellent and gratifying than 
those which occupy the senses or tempt the ambition of the 
sordid. Cicero will be remembered, when Croesus shall be 
forgotten. 

In considering the influence of the passion for riches upon 
our political character, it is to be noted that ours is a repub- 
lican, and designed to be a plain, government; and that vir- 
tue, talent, and public services constitute our only legitimate 
distinctions. In monarchies, rank and opulence confer su- 
periority ; the one of necessity in that kind of polity, and the 
other to support the first. Both being usually hereditary, 
while they constitute no evidence of superior worth, they still 
confer this great advantage: that they either extinguish or 
greatly modify in one class of the commimity, that strong 
gainful propensity which humbler circumstances encourage in 
the multitude. But a republic is upheld by no such artificial 
supports. There wealth may be useful as an auxiliary, but it 
is inefficient as a main dependence. On the contrary, it is 
often the bane of simple governments; while monarchies, 
oligarchies, or despotisms may thrive upon the corruptions 
which it engenders and feeds. 

It was the aim of Lycurgus to equalize property in order 
to perpetuate the severe and simple laws which he established 
in Lacedaemon. They stood as monuments of his wisdom for 
seven hundred years, and it was then principally the intro- 
duction of money that corrupted that people. In a highl}^ 
commercial state, and particularly in this age of the world, 
different laws must govern. But if we look back to our own 
early history and contemplate the examples of our ancestors, 
we shall observe, with somewhat of bigotry and intolerance to 
avoid, much that it is highly desirable we should imitate. The 



Addresses 125 

Pilgrims, when they landed from the Mayflower — a weary and 
comfortless group — had Httle to rely upon but God and their 
own severe virtues; those virtues which adorn freedom, no 
less than they become Christianity ; which give life, vigor, and 
endurance to a republic. The first was Industry, without 
which it was impossible to render their condition tolerable ; in 
its train followed Frugality, the exercise of which, at all times 
desirable, was rendered imperious by circumstances; Perse- 
verance, essential to the ultimate success of all human efforts; 
Temperance, necessary to the rational enjoyment of life, and 
to the support of all the other virtues ; Courage for the defence 
of their new possessions ; and Fortitude to endure the disasters 
and reverses of their exposed condition. On these virtues, 
next to Heaven, as on a foimdation of rock, did they depend 
as the chief supports of their independence and prosperity. 
They adhered to them with Spartan, nay, with Christian rigor ; 
and taught their posterity to revere and cultivate them as 
their chief est and surest safeguards, and their most desirable 
inheritance. 

Years and generations passed away ; but these simple and 
elevating virtues, transmitted from father to son, endured in 
unabating vigor and gave an impress to the increasing popu-^ 
lation of the colonies. Educated to the noble and indepen- 
dent pursuits of agriculture, or to the more enterprising, but 
less innocent ones, of commerce; luxury, extravagance and 
effeminacy, the usual vices of prosperity, had not sapped the 
soundness of their character. Without opulence, and there- 
fore without the corruptions that are its common attendants, 
they entered courageously upon a warfare which, having exer- 
cised all their capacities for endurance, ended triumphantly 
in the establishment of their freedom. It was the victory of 
exalted virtues, from which we have greatly degenerated. 

I speak strongly, but I think truly. Our present condition 
will amply justify the assertion. Without entering into any 
partisan disquisition as to the difficulties under which our 
country labors; a disquisition which the occasion would not 
allow, however sincerely it might be attempted; it may be 



126 James Watson Williams 

safely and properly said that, so far as they are real, they are 
attributable in no slight degree to a neglect of the substantial 
good qualities exemplified in the lives of our progenitors. 
Were they contented with a moderate competence? We are 
greedy of more aboimding riches. Were they frugal? We 
are rimning into a ruinous extravagance. Were they stable 
and persevering? We are ever varying our pursuits in the 
vain hope of realizing wealth in some different avocation from 
that to which we were educated. Like Atalanta, with what- 
ever determination we at first set out in life, we hardly begin 
to run the race with energy before we are tempted aside by 
the golden apples. We forsake our farms, our merchandize, 
our workshops, and our professions, and seek elsewhere that 
affluence which only perseverance can secure. Instead of 
cherishing those qualities which are vital in a republic, we are 
imitating the vices of monarchies where there are vast accu- 
mulations of hereditary wealth. It is time we should return to 
the ancestral virtues. They are the essential virtues which 
bless and adorn life, and become a plain and republican people. 
This contrast, however, of the present and the past may 
possibly be met in the minds of some by a similar feeling with 
that which prompted Mammon, in the Faery Queen, to rebuke 
Sir Guyon for dwelling upon the simplicity and happiness of 
the early ages by way of placing in a more striking light the 
encroachments of avarice and indulgence; 

"Son" (said he then), "let be thy bitter scorn, 

And leave the rudeness of that antique age 
To them, that liv'd therein in state forlorn; 
Thou that dost live in later times must wage 
Thy works for wealth, and life for gold engage." . 

But with all deference to such feelings, the "antique age" is 
too rich with useful experience to be "let be" or forgotten by 
those who regard our political advancement and security. If 
we judge from the past, there appears to be in nations a con- 
stant tendency towards degeneracy and downfall. After ar- 
riving at a certain pitch of prosperity, their course is generally 



Addresses 127 

downwards from prosperity to indulgence, and from indulgence 
to ruin. It therefore concerns us to learn a lesson from the 
past, and to seek to avoid those vices which have precipitated 
the most flourishing states to dissolution. The common evils 
which beset a highly successful condition are luxury, ex- 
extravagance, and effeminacy. Prosperity, however, may be 
enjoyed without those usual concomitants; and it should be 
the chief study of this great people, as it was the ardent desire 
of their unostentatious ancestry, to reach that desirable point 
of national happiness where abundance may be possessed with 
philosophy, and ease without dissoluteness. But it is to be 
feared that we have already wandered somewhat wide of the 
true path to this wished for consummation, and have been too 
much bent upon discovering some royal road to riches. The 
husbandman has left his fields unfilled, to tempt fortune in 
distant parts of our domain ; the merchant, easy in credit, and 
confident in his resources, has drawn upon the future, and 
meantime run riot in indulgence; the professional man has 
abandoned his books, and sought in speculations a rapid in- 
crease of that wealth which Providence designs as the reward 
of well directed and virtuous labor; labor which, under the 
semblance of a perpetual curse, is the most constant of bless- 
ings. An inordinate spirit of gain seems to have infected us 
all to madness; and, like gamesters, attracted by delusive 
hopes, we have deviated from the direct course to happiness 
until the loss of fortune and credit begins to recover us to our 
senses. We may now learn anew the neglected paternal les- 
son that industry, frugality, and stability in our respective 
pursuits, will in this favored land ensure to every man a com- 
petence; and a competence, despise it as we may, is real 
wealth. We should acquire and soberly enjoy it; and leave 
it to our descendants, as our forefathers left it to theirs, to 
make a similar acquisition and obtain similar enjoyments for 
themselves. It will be a more valuable legacy than any we 
can provide for them. Such has been the aim of our plain in- 
stitutions. We have endeavored, and that most wisely, to 
do away with those false distinctions which arise from the 



128 James Watson Williams 

possession of riches ; and to secure their distribution amongst 
all the citizens of the republic, by discountenancing extrava- 
gant accumulations for the ruin of posterity. 

As another evidence of our inclination to degenerate, I may 
refer you, I think with truth, to a distaste daily manifesting 
itself towards the pursuits of agriculture. The reason is evi- 
dent, and has been forcibly assigned, generations ago, by Lord 
Bacon. "The improvement of the ground is the most natural 
obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the 
earth's; but it is slow." Men therefore press from the 
country to the town, to engage in callings that promise speedier 
profit but less independence. Agriculture, however, as it was 
the earliest, so it is the most honorable, innocent, free, and 
manly of all human avocations. "The first three men in the 
world," says Cowley, "were a gardener, a ploughman, and a 
grazier; and if it be objected that the second of these was a 
murderer, I desire it will be remembered that as soon as he 
became so he left our profession and turned builder." "If 
heraldry," he continues, "were guided by reason, a plough in 
a field arable is the most noble and ancient arms." "Hate 
not laborious work," saith Ecclesiasticus, "neither husbandry 
which the Most High hath ordained." There is no employ- 
ment in life of equal necessity and importance; and there is 
certainly none so well designed to foster the substantial vir- 
tues and maintain a republic in its severe simplicity. It 
is the grand dependence of our country ; and had we exhausted 
the riches of our extended and fertile soil, instead of chasing 
the ignes fatui of wealth, we should never have been reduced 
to the humiliating necessity of depending upon foreigners for 
our bread. 

It may be laid down as a principle that those arts and 
occupations which reasonably reward labor, without yielding 
inordinate gains, are the best calculated to promote our true 
and permanent interests. It is upon them that the severer 
virtues delight to attend; while expense, effeminacy, and ex- 
travagant indulgence are the frequent accompaniments of all 
the rest. Those, therefore, demand our highest respect and 



Addresses 129 

encouragement; and these should only be countenanced so 
far as they are positively needful to private and public welfare. 
In proportion as this principle is allowed its just influence in 
determining the direction of our energies and the selection of 
our pursuits, shall we gain in contentment individually, and 
nationally in stability. It is the constant rush towards what- 
ever scheme, employment, or speculation for the moment 
tempts our cupidity, that disturbs the balance of affairs, 
whether private or pubhc, and keeps them in perpetual tur- 
moil; while the last cause we generally blame for the evils 
thus occasioned is our own restlessness and dissatisfaction with 
a quiet course of advancement and prosperity. 

I hope it may not be inferred from any remarks which have 
been advanced, that I am insensible to the striking advantages 
that the desire to prosper in our worldly affairs, which is a 
modification of the passion we have been considering, pro- 
duces upon our character in the various aspects in which it 
has been cursorily viewed. That they have not been more 
particularly touched upon is not because they are lightly 
estimated ; but because the limits proposed for treating upon 
the subject confined me to the excessive cupidity, the ex- 
clusive devotion and the sordid greediness which distinguish 
the passion in its stronger developments. The impulse to 
place one's self in an easy condition of life is approved by both 
philosophy and religion ; but it is a different impulse from that 
to which your attention has been particularly directed. This 
is a headlong current, setting violently from a pestilent foun- 
tain, and poisonous to every thing that seeks to vegetate upon 
and adorn the repulsive rocks that border it ; that is a quiet 
and refreshing stream, flowing from a healthful source, and 
upon its fruitful margins flourish all the virtues and graces 
which impart a charm to prosperity and stamp humanity with 
nobleness. It is these which 

"work the soul's eternal health, 
And love, and joy, and gentleness impart; 
But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth 
E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart; 



130 James Watson Williams 

For ah! it poisons like a scorpion's dart; 

Prompting th' ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme, 
The stern resolve, unmov'd by pity's smart. 

The troublous day, and long distressful dream." 



LECTURE BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION, 
FEBRUARY 6, 1839. 

(As the first part of this address is almost identical with 
that delivered before the Alumni of Geneva College in 1844, 
only the latter part is here given, to avoid repetition.) 

Associations of a Hterary and scientific character con- 
stitute other instruments in the diffusion of knowledge, which, 
considering the occasion on which I address you, come prop- 
erly under review. " Certainly," says Bacon, " the multiplica- 
tion of virtues upon human nature resteth upon societies well 
ordained and disciplined." So does the advancement of 
learning. It is through the medium of those of a high rank 
that some of the most astonishing discoveries of modem times 
have been ushered to the world, and that inventions and im- 
provements of all kinds have been fostered into notice and use. 
The great Societies of England and France are particularly dis- 
tinguished for the lustre which they have shed upon science 
and the arts, more brilliant than that which was imparted by 
the Academies of Greece and Rome. In the investigation of 
natural and physical truth the latter can boast of no names to 
compare with those of Newton and LaPlace, and in mental 
and moral philosophy some distinguished fellows of those cele- 
brated societies, if not so ingenious and refining as the ancient 
philosophers, have conducted their investigations so as to 
approach nearer to truth, and to extort a more unqualified 
assent of enlightened intellect. 

Of a humbler character, however, are as yet the associations 
of this coimtry. They are more circumscribed in their means, 
depending for the most part upon the private liberality of 
their members. But if they have done comparatively little 

131 



132 James Watson Williams 

to make them celebrated, they have done much that is useful ; 
and a century or two may behold some of them famous. As 
wealth accumulates and leisure abounds, we may probably 
see a race of scholars arise who with the encouragement of 
such institutions shall repay to science and art the debt which 
through the great men of ancient and modern days they have 
conferred upon us. Meantime it is our duty to foster the 
beginnings, tmpromising as they may be, of those institutions 
which time and occasion may one day elevate into competi- 
tion with the distinguished associations of other lands, as well 
as of those which aspire to nothing more than present mutual 
improvement. Of the latter character is the Association 
which I have the honor to address. — Its objects are threefold 
— all tending to the advancement of knowledge and the im- 
provement of the mind. The first of these is designed to fur- 
nish a supply of information by means of a public reading 
room and library — where not only may be acquired a know- 
ledge of current events, but where may be consulted those in- 
tellectual legacies which the wise and learned of other times 
have left to posterity. 

"A man," says Selden, "that strives to make himself a 
different thing from other men by much reading, gains this 
chief est good, that in all fortunes he hath something to enter- 
tain and comfort himself withal." — "Reading," says Lord 
Bacon, " makes a full man." A mere book worm is a full man 
to repletion. The design is not to make book worms, but to 
place within the reach of all, those aids which may be neces- 
sary to their pursuits, or may amuse and instruct their leisure ; 
to infuse and to gratify a taste for the productions of the press ; 
to keep constantly open, or at least during the usual intervals 
of business, a resort at once agreeable and useful, which may 
tempt to intellectual pursuits those who might otherwise be 
seduced into vicious courses of sensual gratification. It is not 
necessary, however, to enter at large into the advantages of 
a well arranged reading room and library. They are better 
appreciated than the other objects of the Association to which 
I design more particularly to direct your attention. 



Addresses 133 

Another of these objects is improvement in the art of public 
speaking — an art which to the young men of this country if 
they desire to acquire the popular favor and rise to public 
eminence is of the greatest importance. This object has been 
more neglected than either of the others which the Association 
has in view ; and this neglect will prove a sufficient apology, I 
trust, for repeating in this connection some observations which 
I have heretofore had occasion to make, less publicly than now, 
upon a subject deserving more attention than it generally 
receives. 

The faculty of speaking in public with grace, fluency and 
forcibleness, has always won the admiration of mankind. The 
man who possesses it, is for that faculty alone, however un- 
worthy he may be in other regards, held in uncommon esti- 
mation. Whenever vice is to be reprehended, delinquency 
exposed, or virtue applauded; whenever by the power of argu- 
ment or the force of words, which possess such a wonderful 
influence over human conduct, any thing noble or patriotic is 
to be effected by united action ; to whom do we naturally look, 
but to the man of eloquence, as the efficacious instrument? 
It is on such occasions involving the public welfare, no less 
than on others more directly affecting our private happiness, 
that his superiority is universally acknowledged, and his power 
universally felt. 

A moment's reflection upon the design of public disputa- 
tions, will convince us that it is not to be accomplished with- 
out preparation or by any extemporaneous means. Yet the 
prevalence of a contrary opinion has caused many a society 
founded in enthusiasm, and flourishing through a disputation 
or two, to fall into neglect. A calm self-confidence, resulting 
from the knowledge of one's resources ; a readiness and fluency 
of diction; an easy delivery; an aptness in handling the of- 
fensive and defensive weapons of logical warfare ; these are the 
acquisitions and graces to be attained. They are acquisitions 
of no mean value in the formation and composition of the 
finished speaker. They are not certainly all his accomplish- 
ments ; but they are those which give effect and brilliancy to 



134 James Watson Williams 

all the rest. The sound judgment, the capacious intellect, the 
apt discrimination, the correct taste, may exist separately or 
combined in one whom for those qualities we shall greatly 
admire; but if he be defective in the graces of which I speak, 
all these estimable characteristics, will not save him, as a 
speaker, from the mortification of addressing unwilling listen- 
ers, and in the end of having no listeners to address. We 
know signal instances of this amongst those whose genius and 
acquirements, as displayed in their written productions, have 
commanded universal homage. The graces of active eloquence, 
if it may be so termed, were not theirs; however much the 
eloquence of the closet might distinguish them. 

Isacus, Lysias and Isocrates composed beautiful and 
chaste orations; replete with all the qualities which give to 
written productions the character of eloquence; but from 
want of self-confidence, from weakness of voice, or from some 
other defect which they had not the patience and courage to 
overcome, they never pronounced them. Had they acquired 
the accomplishments of the Forum, it is not improbable that 
they would have divided with Demosthenes and Cicero the 
favor of their contemporaries and the applauses of posterity. 
These two wonderful men labored under as great natural dis- 
advantages as either of the others; and although equally 
skilled with them in all the arts and attractions of written 
eloquence, their ambition to shine as public characters 
prompted them to singular exertions in contending with their 
natural defects. The consequence was that they not only 
outshone their quiet masters, but outstripped all the world 
beside. 

One of the master orators of modern times, if his published 
orations form a fair criterion of his merit, was Edmund Burke ; 
but never, it is said, was a distinguished man more unhappy 
in the public delivery of his brilliant productions. His- rising 
to speak is reported on many occasions to have had a magical 
effect in thinning the House of Commons ; and to read his fine 
orations as they issued from the press, was thought to be far 
more delightful than to listen to them as they were drawled 



Addresses 135 

from the tedious lips of the orator. He knew the force of 
words ; but he wanted the arts of declamation. 

These instances are noted to evidence _ the necessity of 
acquiring the attractive graces of which I speak, not only if 
one desires to shine, but if he desires to be tolerated. To 
shine is not the worthiest object of ambition ; and so far as 
the humble exercises of the debating room are concerned, by 
no means the chief one. There it is sufficient, in the first 
place, substantially to improve one's self; in the next, to 
interest, if not to instruct, others. The effusions of the mo- 
ment will accomplish neither of these things, nor any thing 
else that is truly desirable. If the study of years will hardly 
make an orator, as the ancients tmderstood this comprehen- 
sive name; much less will the preparation of a day make a 
tolerable speaker, as we nowadays seem by our neglecting 
even that to imagine. 

"To feel your subject thoroughly, and to speak without 
fear," says Goldsmith in one of the papers of the Bee, "are 
the only rules of eloquence, properly so called, which I can 
offer." Whether the only ones or not, it must be confessed 
they are of the greatest importance. But how can one feel a 
subject thoroughly which he has not thoroughly investigated ; 
or speak without fear, when he is uncertain of his ground? 
They are, in truth, rules which imply a complete preparation, 
for without that they can nev^r be practised upon. 

There is a most false and unworthy objection urged by 
many against this idea of preparation, that it indicates a want 
of genius and ability. It might more truly be said, that a 
neglect of it betokens an egregious want of respect to those 
whom one desires to be the auditors of his efforts. The crude 
half -formed notions which we give utterance to on the im- 
pulse of the moment, are not usually of sufficient worth either 
to do credit to ourselves or to advantage others. They may 
be amused to laughter with our extemporaneous folly, but 
they can hardly be enlightened by our extemporaneous wis- 
dom. On a dry, abstract question that warms no passion and 
excites no feeling, it is not to be wondered at that one's thoughts 



136 James Watson Williams 

are dull and his emotions languid. A little study and reflec- 
tion will enliven both ; rendering what would otherwise be in- 
sipid, at least agreeable, and probably persuasive. A neglect 
of these is too much the vice of modern times. How often do 
we see men, whom we know to be capable of better things, 
injuring their own fame and doing injustice to mankind, by 
neglecting the preparatory labor which Providence compels 
man to undergo if he would achieve anything that is valuable, 
or worthy of remembrance and duration! 

It is deserving the attention of all those who set so great 
a value upon what they are pleased to call ready genius that 
the most famous orators in all ages have been those who were 
most diligent in the preparation not only of the matter, but 
of the arrangement and style of their orations. Demosthenes 
and Cicero composed theirs with the greatest care and study; 
pondering not only every thought, but every syllable; and in 
those times an extemporaneous reply that would not dis- 
credit the fame of such great men, was thought to be the 
divinest reach of eloquence, and not to be attained by ordinary 
exertions. "The faculty of speaking on a sudden question 
with unpremeditated eloquence," says Quintilian, "is the re- 
ward of study and diligent application." 

But even with those distinguished men (for modern days 
can boast of such) who did not undergo the labor of a pre- 
composition of every period in their speeches, but trusted to 
the impulse and excitement of the moment for a happy and 
fluent style of declamation, we know it was their custom to 
precompose such bursts of passion as they designed to be 
peculiarly effective and felicitous. It is recorded of Sheridan 
that it was his habit to write out in the retirement of his study, 
those frequent appeals to the feelings of his auditors^ which 
stamp him as a man capable of the highest flights of eloquence. 
Burke undoubtedly did more; for while Sheridan has left to 
posterity no authentic record of a complete oration, we have 
many of Burke's prepared by his own hand, with all that 
cautious labor which distinguishes a man who is anxious to 
stand well with what Lord Bacon calls "the succeeding times." 



Addresses 137 

He copied after the models of antiquity ; and they who profess 
to be dissatisfied with the ampHfication and diffuseness of his 
orations, and the labored polish of their style, cannot sincerely 
admire the greater diffuseness and amplification of Cicero, or 
the more labored strength of Demosthenes. 

They who fancy, from the apparent ease which marks the 
efforts of famous men, that it is rather natural than factitious, 
wretchedly mistake the conditions on which enduring fame and 
greatness are acquired. " Nothing is given to mortals without 
indefatigable labor." As the luxurious enjoyment of wealth 
cannot be indulged in, until wealth is first laboriously accu- 
mulated; so the gratifications of success and renown in any 
path of human ambition, are the fruits of many a painful step 
in reaching the eminence on which alone those gratifications 
flourish. The rules and qualifications which Cicero enumerates 
as essential to be observed and acquired by him who would 
aspire to the distinction of a "complete orator," may be ridi- 
culed by the half made speaker of more modern days; but 
they have formed at least one who has always ranked as a 
confessed model of oratorical excellence. His life was a life 
of study and diligence ; rewarded not only with the confidence 
and applauses of his own countrymen, but with the reverence 
of posterity. 

There is a kind of eloquence which is rather the offspring 
of strong excitement than of deliberation ; but the occasions 
which give it birth are as extraordinary as the style is sublime. 
They are not such as professional men are apt to be blessed 
with, or as occur in times of quietness to any. It is equally 
the eloquence of savage and civilized life ; struck out by the 
violent collisions which are often the precursors, and always 
the accompaniments of great revolutions. Such was the style 
of Henry : a man whose genius no ordinary events would have 
aroused from its slumbers; who, with little to rely upon but 
the inborn vigor of his intellect, "thundered forth", as was 
said of Cicero, "his immortal energy" at a time when the 
world was an admiring spectator of the infant struggles of 
American liberty. Such also but more cultivated was the 



138 James Watson Williams 

style of Grattan; whose warm and manly passions were ex- 
cited into a flame by the corruptions and wrongs that dis- 
graced his native country. — On such occasions, a man of 
ardent temperament, of strong intellectual powers, of fervid 
imagination, of fluent speech, may safely trust to the in- 
spiration of a sudden enthusiasm. But such examples are not 
the safe guides for us. Our oratory, if it is worthy of that 
noble name, is necessarily of a more quiet and calmer kind; 
of which deliherativeness is the chief characteristic. We can- 
not elevate our feelings into the glow of enthusiasm, without 
first lashing ourselves into a sort of factitious warmth and 
fury; a discipline which needs to be administered with taste 
and caution if one would avoid rendering himself ridiculous. 
The themes of the debating room are commonly of that cold 
character which demands an equal coolness of mind and tem- 
per in handling them; and although this consideration may 
cHp the wings that would otherwise soar to more exalted 
flights, it will yet lead to the acquisition of that more useful 
style which better accords with the practical temper of the 
times; yielding perhaps more substantial benefits, if it does 
not excite such vociferous acclamations. 

This, owing perhaps to the somewhat phlegmatic tempera- 
ment of ourselves and our kinsmen of the mother country, and 
to a greater diffusion of intelligence, is the prevailing charac- 
teristic of the best speakers of the English and American 
schools. It is an eloquence addressed less to the feelings, than 
the reason of men; in truth, mainly to the reason; adapted 
to the forms of legislation, and to the common routine of civil 
business as practised in the present age. It is the kind of 
oratory which should take the precedence of all others in the 
exercises of disputation ; for oratory has its fashions, which 
must be conformed to by those who would be applauded and 
successful. But the complete orator in this style must also 
practise with his weapons before he attempts to wield them 
with vigor and activity, that he may come into the arena of 
debate with all his armor of logic and oratory tried on and 
completely fitted. His accomplishments must be as multi- 



Addresses 139 

farious, although perhaps not quite so perfect in their re- 
spective kinds, considering the greater scope and perfection of 
human knowledge, as those which were deemed requisite in 
the finished orator of Greece and Rome. The graces of the one 
style are no less the graces of the other ; to be acquired by the 
same sacrifice of time and the same intensity of application. 

I trust that these reflections will not be considered as out 
of place when the importance of disputations as an object of 
this Association is reflected on, and that it is an object in 
which nevertheless the public seem to feel so little interest. 
The secret of this neglect lies almost entirely in the neglect of 
those who take a part in the discussions ; in their want of pre- 
paration. A fine disputation is not only useful to those who 
engage in it, but attractive to others; but preparation is all 
essential to make it so. This is demanded and expected; 
perfection, however, is not. That is the result of long ex- 
perience. It is in the debating room that we make the first 
awkward efforts with our youthful pinions to test their 
strength and learn the arts by which we may venture to soar 
aloft without encountering the danger of a wretched downfall. 

Lectures on subjects of science and art, — philosophy, his- 
tory, and morals, — form another object of this Association, 
not less worthy of encouragement, nor less tending to useful- 
ness than those we have already considered. Their advantage 
consists in this : that they impart to those whose pursuits do 
not allow them leisure, or whose early education has not given 
them opportunity, to compass the whole variety of human 
knowledge, a condensed statement — an outline, sufficient for 
ordinary purposes — of what is useful to be known or may 
instruct while it amuses ;— and also in this ; that they recall to 
the memory of those who may heretofore have investigated 
particular branches of knowledge, that information which the 
ordinary engagements of business may have confused or 
obliterated. It is impossible, moreover, in the present ad- 
vanced state of science and art to obtain a complete know- 
ledge of any department of either, without directing to it the 
study of a life; but the primary elements, and the general 



I40 James Watson Williams 

outlines of all, may be grasped by every one, and in no more 
attractive and instructive mode can they be presented to our 
minds than by the medium of popular lectures. There are 
some branches of knowledge also, and those of a very useful 
kind, with which the diligent study of never so many books 
can hardly make us familiar. These need to be illustrated by 
ocular view of their subjects, and by manual experiments. 
Such illustrations are always more striking than any which 
mere language can convey. Without them it is difficult to 
acquire any very accurate notions of the physical sciences — 
chemistry, botany, physiology, anatomy, mechanics. There 
are few branches of human knowledge, upon which every man 
who aspires to be enlightened should not possess information ; 
but to study them in detail is beyond the leisure of most. 
Lectures present in a summary way whatever may be essential 
to those who do not make those branches a pursuit. If any 
one desires more than a well digested lecture imparts, the li- 
brary will be his resort; where he may find such treatises as 
will enable him to pursue the topic of his inquiries with all the 
ardor and enthusiasm of an investigating mind. 

Lectures, as an agreeable and effective mode of com- 
municating information, are in general use in some countries, 
and have the preference there over the common methods of 
teaching. Some of the best published treatises on philosophy, 
law, medicine, history, rhetoric and morals, are but lectures 
delivered to classes in renowned institutions of learning, by 
professors of those particular sciences. But to say nothing 
of those who make it their profession, there are those in every 
community whose acquirements and leisure enable them to 
impart intellectual amusement and instruction; and such an 
institution as this is useful in bringing their abilities into 
profitable exercise. The usefulness, too, is reciprocal; di- 
vided between those who undertake the task, and those who 
listen to its results. 

It is not always, however, that lectures excite interest and 
attract a willing audience. It does not speak well for the 
good sense or taste of a community when such is the case, nor 



Addresses 141 

does it argue a very strong thirst for improvement, particularly 
when the only exaction made upon the auditors is the time 
spent in attendance. The liberality which throws open the 
lecture room to all, should be appreciated by all ; and no more 
grateful testimonial of that appreciation can be displayed than 
a ready and general attendance of all whose avocations allow 
them the little leisure which is requisite. The efforts of the 
lecturer deserve at least so much encouragement; and in pro- 
portion as the public betray an interest in them will be his 
study to gratify it. 

A devotion to business so ardent that it does not allow us 
to cultivate our minds beyond the actual necessities of our 
callings, is somewhat characteristic of the American people. 
With more of what is styled general information, we have less 
ambition, and seem to have less leisure, to become learned, 
than almost any other people. We all acquire in youth the 
elemental knowledge that fits us to discharge the duties of our 
several vocations ; but, those vocations once entered upon, we 
are apt to suffer them to engross our undivided attention. 
Business is the universal apology for every neglect. But, 
says a great authority, "the most active or busy man, that 
hath been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of 
leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business" 
— "and then the question is but, how those spaces and times 
of leisure shall be filled and spent ; whether in pleasures or in 
studies." — ^The lecture room is one of those retreats from our 
daily pursuits which may be agreeably and advantageously 
resorted to. It is open to all classes; but those who, one 
would suppose, might enjoy it the most, and derive the most 
advantage from it, are not the most forward to occupy it. 
More especially should those who have enrolled themselves 
as members of such a society devote their attention to its 
exercises ; and show that they at least are zealous in behalf of 
the objects for which they are associated. 

On occasions when citizens elevated to high rank for their 
professional ability, or favorably known for their literary 
taste and extensive reading, have complied with urgent 



142 James Watson Williams 

solicitations to prepare themselves for the task of imparting 
their information, how often have we beheld the seats of the 
lecture room almost vacant! It is desirable that a different 
disposition should be cultivated; and that the influential of 
all pursuits should set an example that will be felt and fol- 
lowed in a matter so directly tending to the substantial ad- 
vantage of the community. Let the merchant remember for 
himself and those in his employment, the literary renown of 
Italy in the 15 th century, and that it was owing to the taste and 
encouragement of a family of Florentine merchants, whose 
devotion to their business made them opulent without dcr 
priving them of the studious leisure which made them literary. 
Let the mechanic and the artisan call to mind an illustrious 
philosopher of our own country, who not only verified by his 
industry the truth of Solomon's aphorism, "Seest thou a man 
diligent in his business? — he shall stand before kings" — but 
who found leisure to make some of the most brilliant dis- 
coveries of modern times, without infringing upon his mechani- 
cal pursuits. And let them be incited by the example of a 
Hving artisan in a neighboring State, who to this day performs 
his daily task at the forge, and yet has found leisure to acquire 
a knowledge of more than fifty languages; and whose thirst 
for information has induced him to leave the village of his 
birth, in order that he may enjoy the advantages elsewhere of 
an institution similar in its character to this. 

"To pass our time in the study of the sciences," says Lord 
Brougham, "in learning what others have discovered, and in ex- 
tending the bounds of human knowledge, has, in all ages, been 
reckoned the most dignified and happy of human occupations ; and 
the name of Philosopher, or Lover of Wisdom, is given to those who 
lead such a life. But it is by no means necessary that a man 
should do nothing else than study known truths, and explore new, 
in order to earn this high title. Some of the greatest philosophers, 
in all ages, have been engaged in the pursuits of active life; and 
an assiduous devotion of the bulk of our time to the work which 
our condition requires, is an important duty, and indicates the 
possession of practical wisdom. This, however, does by no means 



Addresses 143 

hinder us from applying the rest of our time, beside what nature 
requires for meals and rest, to the study of science; and he who, in 
whatever station his lot may be cast, works his day's work, and 
improves his mind in the evening, as well as he who, placed above 
such necessity, prefers the refined and elevating pleasures of know- 
ledge to the low gratification of the senses, richly deserves the name 
of a True Philosopher." 

Such philosophers may we all be — and to encourage and 
satisfy a taste for such philosophy is the great object of this 
and kindred institutions. The public, whom they are de- 
signed to serve, are deeply interested in their success; and 
surely it is not unreasonable to expect that the reciprocal 
duties of the public will be cheerfully rendered. 

In addition to the general motives which I have endeavored 
to present, that should secure substantial encouragement to the 
efforts and objects of this Association, there are particular 
ones that might be addressed to our pride as citizens of "no 
mean city. ' ' A successful pursuit of business is not all that 
gives a desirable character to a community. The inquisitive 
stranger as he passes along and observes the order, the neat- 
ness, and the comfort of our dwellings, the pleasantness of our 
position, and the bustle of our population, perceives at once 
the surest evidence of our prosperity; "but," he naturally 
enquires, "what are the amusements of your hours of relaxa- 
tion?" We should be able to point to a literary society 
which may gratify our pride while it ministers to our intel- 
lectual cultivation; not languishing for want of liberality, — 
its reading room deserted, its library closed, its disputations 
and its lectures neglected; but an institution which calls into 
play the talents and acquirements that undoubtedly exist 
among us, giving not only opportunity, but encouragement, 
to their exercise. It is thus that we may make the pleasures 
of knowledge tributary to the enlightened enjoyment of that 
situation which successful labor has rendered prosperous ; and 
it is thus that in our day and generation we may contribute 
to the advancement of a right public taste, and leave the 
world the better for our having lived in it. 



' CORPORATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS. 

WRITTEN PRIOR TO THE PASSAGE OF THE GENERAL LAWS 

FOR THE CREATION OF MANUFACTURING 

AND OTHER CORPORATIONS. 

THE prevalent disposition which exists to place associations 
for gainful purposes under the protection of corporate 
privileges, has awakened the public attention to the kind and 
degree of pecuniary liability which should legally attach to 
the persons composing them. On the one hand, it is insisted 
that their accountability should be limited to their several 
interests in the joint property of the association ; and on the 
other, that it should extend, like that of copartnership, to the 
several estates of the associates. Between these extremes, 
there are those who maintain, that while the joint property 
should be held responsible, the several associates should also 
be accoimtable to an amount equal, or bearing some other 
arbitrary ratio, to their several shares in the common stock. 
It is a question, in effect, between the long established immu- 
nities of corporations, and the still longer established liabili- 
ties of copartnership. 

To gain wealth, and at the same time avoid the hazard of 
losing wealth, is the double object of those who combine in 
enterprises of trade or business. The history of such enter- 
prises shows that those which are tolerably certain of profit- 
able returns, are entered upon with alacrity, and with no great 
unwillingness to risk all the responsibility of failure; while 
those which are of doubtful success are assumed with reluct- 
ance, and not without a strong disposition to shake off the 
hazards. Supposing both sorts to require associated means 

144 



Addresses 145 

for their prosecution, the first are the subjects of ordinary co- 
partnership, with all its accoimtability ; the second seek the 
interposition of government to diminish their liabilities, on 
the ground of some direct or consequential public benefit to 
be derived from their successful prosecution. 

This interposition of government is usually extended by 
means of charters of incorporation ; a perversion of the origi- 
nal design of corporations which is of questionable wisdom. 
They were not devised to promote doubtful enterprises ; but for 
municipal, literary, or charitable objects. Possessing, however, 
some obvious advantages over ^partnerships, they gradually 
became favorite organizations for carrying on undertakings 
requiring concentration of wealth and facility in employing it. 
In this country, particularly, they have become so popular, 
that a great portion of the business of legislation consists in 
framing special charters or general acts authorizing their 
formation, until a great variety of business is now protected, 
by a legislative shield, from some of the most serious respon- 
sibilities which would otherwise attach to it. 

Associated capital is unquestionably necessary to carry on 
not only all vast undertakings, but many of those of a more 
limited nature. It is as deserving of legislative favor when 
employed by an obscure partnership, as by a titled corpora- 
tion. There is, probably, more associated wealth, in the 
aggregate, employed in the business of partnerships, than in 
that of corporations ; and yet it is exposed to greater risks and 
enjoys fewer immunities. The policy of this legal partiality 
deserves to be investigated. 

If two persons combine their capital for the manufacture 
of cotton, there seems to be no good reason why they should 
not legally have the same privileges and exemptions which 
are allowed to a hundred engaged in the same pursuit. But 
the laws of this State make a wide distinction, and hold 
the two to liabilities from which they exempt the hundred. 
Thus, instead of shielding weakness, they thicken the panoply 
of strength. 

By associating under certain legal formalities, a dozen 



146 James Watson Williams 

capitalists may form a corporation to make woolen cloths, 
and evade all responsibility for their undertaking beyond that 
of sacrificing their investment, and as much more besides. 
The same men, if they desire to unite their means to construct 
steamboats for the conveyance of passengers or cargoes, are 
obliged to form a partnership, and answer, with their whole 
fortunes, for the good conduct of the elements and the success 
of their adventure. Thus the same cloth which passes through 
the looms of the corporation with so little comparative risk, is 
conveyed to its market, over waves and through tempests, at 
the hazard of all the wealth, joint and several, of the part- 
nership. 

Why, if these men deserve immunities for the first under- 
taking, should they not be equally privileged in the last? 

If the amount of capital be regarded, the forwarding enter- 
prise is, perhaps, the most considerable ; but, even if it be the 
least so, to gauge immunities by the measure of capital, is in- 
directly to affirm that the wealthiest should be the most 
thickly hedged about with privileges. 

If it be urged that the capital employed is a joint contribu- 
tion for a special purpose, and therefore deserves protection, 
the reason applies equally to both. 

If the object to be attained by the corporation be of peculiar 
public benefit, that may be a good reason why the government 
should undertake it, and riot leave any portion of its risks to 
oppress individuals. 

If it be of public benefit incidentally, and of private profit 
directly, then the sam^e government which grants the immuni- 
ties, should share the gains. At least, it should reflect that 
the manufacture of the corporation is of no use until it be con- 
veyed by the partnership to the hands of the consumer, and 
should therefore bestow equal encouragements upon the trans- 
portation and the manufacture. 

Reasons like those just stated and met, are those most 
commonly advanced in favor of corporations (instituted for 
gainful purposes) . But all trades and arts are useful in their 
degree. None can be pursued without means, nor without 



Addresses i47 

danger of failure, or a possible liability. If we protect one, 
we are bound to protect another, or incur the odium of par- 
tial legislation. 

In every case of bankruptcy, whether of a corporate body, 
a partnership, or a private person, a loss must be suffered by 
some one. It is right that it should fall on those only by 
whose fault or misfortune it happens, and especially when they 
only would reap the benefits of success. There is obviously no 
justice in any arrangement by which it shall fall elsewhere. 
But just in the same proportion as those who are concerned in 
causing it are permitted to escape its consequences, in the 
same proportion do others, not so concerned, become in- 
volved in them. 

As a general rule, every man is answerable for his own 
undertakings ; and until his property is exhausted, he cannot 
escape from the responsibility. So every partnership is an- 
swerable; and when its common stock is spent, the private 
means of each partner must contribute equally to the pay- 
ment of the joint indebtedness: if that contribution be still 
insufficient, then the longest purse must make up the de- 
ficiency. So a government also is answerable; and when its 
treasury is exhausted, the whole property of all the citizens is 
taxable to the last penny to replenish it, in fulfillment of its 
engagements. When, however, a body corporate of less dig- 
nity than a government is concerned, a mere creature of that 
government, the aspect of the case is changed. Up to a 
certain limit, its accountability is enforced; beyond that, we 
discover that most intolerable sort of repudiation, — a refusal 
to pay, when the means of the individual associates are still 
sufficient to meet its obligations. 

In defence of this, it is urged that a corporation has a 
definite capital, and is known to the public to have a limited 
liability : that all who deal with it, do so upon an exact meas- 
ure of its means: that its members undertake to be answer- 
able for so much and no more: that they have contributed 
out of their private means a given amount to share the risks 
of the enterprise, on a definite and notorious understanding 



148 James Watson Williams 

that that is all they mean to embark in it: and that if the 
principle of a limited partnership, as recognized by law, is at 
all maintainable, it is maintainable to the extent of justifying 
the immunities of corporations, which, as regards liability, 
may be deemed limited partnerships. 

-These plausible positions apply, most of them, with the 
same force to individuals and to general partnerships, as to 
corporations. Why should a body corporate, more than an 
individual, be authorized to limit its liability to the precise 
amount invested in any undertaking? Why should not a 
partnership be permitted to advertise the public of the amount 
of stock embarked in its business, and be exempt from any 
responsibility beyond that, as well as a corporation? All may 
be engaged in pursuits of equal merit, requiring equal capital, 
and exposed to equal hazards. To assign a substantial 
reason for the inequality of their respective risks and immuni- 
ties, will task the most ingenious mind. 

The loss of only the common property of a body corporate, 
and the total loss of the joint and several property of a part- 
nership, in case of bankruptcy, are the two extremes of legal 
liability. The difficulty of adopting any intermediate stand- 
ard is insuperable ; for there is no medium which is based upon 
a simple principle that arrests and fixes the mind in a satis- 
factory conclusion. The law of 181 1 makes an arbitrary 
compromise, which sacrifices both extremes. The principle 
that measures corporate liability by corporate property, has 
the merit of distinctness and of preserving a legal identity; 
the principle of partnership liability has a like merit. Each is 
easily apprehended and definable. But a half-way combina- 
tion of the two is anomalous, and makes the stockholder a 
partner with only half the accountability of one, and a partner 
a stockholder with more than the accountability of one, with- 
out satisfying either principle. 

It is difficult to decide on what ground of justice or reason 
it has been determined that the liability of the stockholder 
in a manufacturing corporation shall be his share of the 
capital stock, and as much again, rather than twice or thrice 



Addresses 149 

as much again, or only half as much again ; why it is not the 
whole, as well as any fractional part, of what he has left after 
losing his stock. This hybrid sort of liability, neither wholly 
exempts him as a private person, nor wholly secures the cred- 
itor; and it satisfies neither. It is a shift to divide the risks 
of failure with the community, without at the same time 
dividing the gains of success. It is a sort of premium allowed 
by government upon some preferred undertakings, which, 
however meritorious, are no more so than some other under- 
takings which are suffered to struggle against more imminent 
hazards than those of simple partnership accountability. 

There are, for example, associations of persons engaged in 
the business of conveying freight and passengers on our lakes, 
navigable rivers and canals, exposed not only to the sweeping 
liabilities of copartnership, but to the dangers of the elements, 
and the vast responsibilities of common carriers. The capital 
invested by some of these companies in costly vessels, which a 
tempest may sink with all their valuable cargoes, is larger 
than that of most of our interior banks, or of any of our manu- 
facturing corporations. The importance to the community 
of the intercommunication which is carried on by their means, 
is not inferior, in any view, to that of the results produced by 
cotton and woolen mills. For a quarter of a century, in the 
face of all the disadvantages attending the prosecution of 
affairs by large associations of men under the existing laws of 
copartnership, these companies have pursued their business, 
no less profitably to themselves than to the public. Liable at 
any moment, perhaps in the season of business, or in the 
actual performance of some contract or undertaking, to be 
dissolved by the death or legal incapacity of an associate; 
exposed to be harassed by legal proceedings, expensive and 
dilatory in proportion to the number of partners ; without a 
common name that the law recognizes, or any legal symbol 
to evidence their joint acts; holding their property subject 
to all the chances of a division or partition which an unex- 
pected death may occasion, to the breaking up and perhaps 
the sacrifice of their venture : such are some of the disabilities 



150 James Watson Williams 

with which they contend, and which the partiahty of the laws 
has removed out of the path of their more favored fellow 
citizens who are engaged in manufactures. In spite of these, 
however, they thrive. Seeking no exemption from the right- 
eous law which makes them answerable to the community, 
not only for their own mismanagement, imprudence, or ex- 
travagance, but for perils that human foresight can neither 
anticipate nor prevent ; there are yet some formal obligations 
imposed on them from which they might reasonably demand 
to be released, and some harmless facilities in the transaction 
of business withheld from them with which they might wisely 
be endowed. These conceded, they would be corporations in 
all the useful and worthy characteristics of corporations, and 
still remain partnerships in all the wholesome and responsible 
characteristics of partnerships. 

But no consideration can properly be claimed for such 
associations as these, to which those of less magnitude are not, 
in the eye of equal legislation, as justly entitled. They have 
been referred to merely as a forcible illustration of the ex- 
treme inequity of existing laws; which would confer on the 
same property and the same men, if engaged in some manu- 
facturing enterprise, facilities and immunities they do not now 
enjoy, when prosecuting a business of at least equal social im- 
portance, and of much greater risk. 

A limited partnership, as allowed by law, is an anomalous 
compound of corporation and copartnership, of a different 
sort from the anomaly created by the law of 181 1. One 
partner has a limited, the other a general liability. The 
limited liability depends not more upon the amount con- 
tributed, than upon a precise and technical compliance with 
arbitrary legal formalities, a deviation from which, in the 
least degree, is held to expose the limited partner to the gen- 
eral risk. But pure corporate liability is uniform : it is in no 
wise connected with a general partnership liability. It has 
the merit of simplicity; of standing upon one plain principle, 
right or wrong, that the joint property is all that gives it 
credit, and all that can be sacrificed. Any more comprehen- 



Addresses 151 

sive liability than this, embraces, to the extent of it, the prin- 
ciple of copartnership, limited or general; involves, to the 
same extent, a departure from the corporate principle; and 
amounts to an acknowledgment of the defects of corporations 
as responsible organizations for the prosecution of active busi- 
ness ; an acknowledgment which, if investigated, will be found 
to concede all that is contended for by those who maintain the 
principle of personal liability for joint debts. 

But this is not the only acknowledgment of it. The law 
of 1 8 1 1 is a forcible admission that mere corporate liability 
is impolitic and unsafe; and it therefore attempts to engraft 
upon it a confined personal liability, less than that of general, 
and more than that of limited copartnership. The new Con- 
stitution of this State concedes the whole ground assumed by 
the advocates of unlimited responsibility, by requiring that 
"dues from corporations shall be secured by such individual 
liabilities of the corporators, and other means as may be pre- 
scribed by law." What the law may prescribe is not yet as- 
certained; but that dues shall be secured is positively provided 
for, and that individual liabilities are the principal security to 
be prescribed is obvious. The " other means " are supplement- 
ary: they come in aid of the individual liability: they are, as 
it were, collateral to the main security. Any legislation which 
shall make individual liabilities secondary, and "other means" 
primary, as the constitutional security for dues from corpora- 
tions, will be a miserable evasion of legislative duty, and a 
fraud upon the sovereign will of the people. Next to the 
capital, individtial liabilities must first become the guaranty. 

Whether the liability of a corporation be purely corporate, 
or a mixed liability of corporate and individual estates, is a 
matter of little practical moment, except in case of bank- 
ruptcy. It is then that the interests of the stockholders and 
of the creditors come into conflict, and while the first are 
anxious to shun, the last are earnest to enforce, the personal 
consequences. The kind and degree of liability is then a 
matter of great moment; and if it be Corporate only, the 
public, without the chance of being gainers in case of success, 



152 James Watson Williams 

are the chief sufferers in the event of misfortune. There is 
a division of the burthens of adversity, but none of the gains 
of prosperity. Every person in the community would be 
wilhng to undertake any enterprise of ordinary risk on such 
favorable terms. 

There is great force in a remark of the late Chief Justice 
Parker, the weight of whose character will give currency to 
an opinion, where that of an obscure man might be ill received. 
Speaking of manufacturing corporations, "the interest of the 
community," he says, "seems to require that the individuals 
whose property, thus put into a common mass, enables them 
to obtain credit universally, should not shelter themselves 
from a responsibility to which they would be liable as mem- 
bers of a private association." This interest of the com- 
munity is equally deserving of the regard of legislators, as of 
judges. It may be advanced by conferring on private associa- 
tions certain privileges now accorded only to corporations; 
but a diminution of individual liability is not one of them. 
Too much has already been conceded in this respect, and the 
probability is that more will be, unless deliberation and wis- 
dom, and a right appreciation of constitutional provisions, 
assume the place of popular feeling in our legislative bodies. 
Private associations will gladly do all that corporations can, 
without seeking a shelter from copartnership accountability, 
if they are only endowed with those privileges of corporations 
that excite no question, and are void of all suspicion of danger. 
Men of small, as well as of large means, will, for they do now, 
assume the hazards of partnership enterprises : all they ask is 
that they may be allowed the same facilities that corporations 
have for conducting them. Give them the use of a common 
name ; the power to witness their associate acts by a common 
symbol ; and the enjoyment of their common property without 
the accidental interruptions to which the strict rules of the 
common law expose them; but still hold them to the widest 
responsibilities of copartnership ; and they will soon dispel all 
the theories that have warped legislation to the extravagant 
concession of corporate rights in diminution of the rights of 



Addresses 153 

the community. The fear of loss does not deter, so much as 
the hope of gain stimulates ; and men of small means, as daily 
experience shows, are as numerously embarked in the un- 
limited hazards of private associations, as in the restricted 
ones of incorporated companies. Where the wealthy are 
willing to peril great, the humble will venture small fortunes. 
Confidence in those who control an enterprise, and who are to 
be sacrificed by its wreck, is a stronger attraction than ex- 
emption from its apprehended dangers ; and those who judge 
wisely are confident that their interests are more securely 
guarded by those who are vitally concerned in the joint 
success, than by those who will hardly feel the loss of their 
share of the venture. When the whole fortunes of men are 
at stake, it is the strongest of all guaranties for prudence and 
caution in the management of affairs; and where the total 
bankruptcy of all interested may follow mismanagement, 
there is the best assurance that every eye will be watchful 
and foreseeing. Accordingly, the care exercised in selecting 
agents, in anticipating and warding off untoward contingen- 
cies, in avoiding debts, and in the practice of economical and 
plain modes of transacting affairs, is no where more con- 
spicuous than among those private companies which have no 
shelter in the sympathies of legislation, but which are ex- 
posed to all the rigors of individual liability. 

The conclusion is that true policy, as well as equal legisla- 
tion, requires that corporations which are engaged in the 
prosecution of the various branches of manufacture, trade, 
or art, or other pursuit of gain, should have no greater immu- 
nities than private associations engaged in the same pursuits, 
and that private associations for such and kindred purposes 
should be legally endowed with some of the privileges of cor- 
porations. As there is an identity of objects, there should be 
an identity of organization to promote them. Legislation 
would be more profitably employed in modifying some of the 
inconvenient rules of the common law which shackle partner- 
ships, than in seeking after some standard of easy liability for 
corporations, which in proportion as it varies from that of 



154 James Watson Williams 

copartnership will be unsafe and unconstitutional, and which 
cannot be otherwise than arbitrary. 

In brief, let partners, by some public act, assume a name 
which shall be of legal consequence, adopt a symbol to attest 
their joint acts, and, during the term stipulated in their ar- 
ticles of association, be free from the legal interruptions 
caused by death or incapacity, and they will be found to sub- 
serve all the purposes of corporations in all those enterprises 
of trade, manufacture, art, or commerce which corporations 
have ever been allowed to undertake. 



AN ORATION DELIVERED AT FAXTON HALL, 
MARCH 12, 1869. 

TRAINED LABOR. 

THE Garden of Eden, as Scripture tells us, was adapted, in 
all respects, for the support, comfort and pleasure of 
man in his state of innocence. 

There was then no labor, nor an}^ necessity for it. The 
trimming and dressing of the garden was a pastime, — "sweet 
gardening labor," as Milton calls it. Everything to meet his 
wants was ready to man's hand; and his wants were really 
nothing but mere sustenance of the body, to be plucked at 
pleasure. There was no sort of provision for clothing, which 
has since become such a portentous extravagance. The 
woman, who was provided for his helpmeet and companion, 
introduced this wonderful addition to his positive needs; and 
somehow she manages to this day, notwithstanding her 
superior economy and thrift in household matters, to make it 
a smart burden; for which man, to tell the whole truth, by 
his propensity for admiring that artificial attraction, is con- 
siderably responsible. It will occur, however, to an inductive 
and philosophizing mind, that here is the ultimate cause and 
prime origin of needles, spinning-wheels, and looms, of cotton 
and woolen mills, and all the other numerous contrivances 
which produce the existing boundless substitutes for the fig 
leaves and the coats of skins that were the primeval habili- 
ments of our wicked and venerated progenitors. 

After the necessity or the fashion of clothing, came labor, — 
a further inheritance from our first parents, who had abundant 
chance for living without it ; but the same disobedience which 

155 



156 James Watson Williams 

made them ashamed of themselves, also reduced them to the 
necessity of getting a living by the sweat of the brow. This 
has ever since been not only a necessity, but happily a dis- 
guised blessing, for all their posterity. "This labor and 
sweat of our brows," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, "is so far 
from being a curse, that without it, our very bread would not 
be so great a blessing. Is it not labor that makes the garlic 
and the pulse, the sycamore and the cresses, to be savory and 
pleasant, as the flesh of the roebuck, or the milk of the kine? 
If it were not for labor, men neither could relish so pleasantly, 
nor sleep so soundly, nor be so healthy, nor so useful, so strong, 
nor so patient. And besides these advantages, the mercies 
of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labor ; 
—nights to cure the sweat of the day — sleep to ease our 
watchfulness — rest to alleviate our burdens — and days of re- 
ligion to procure our rest ; and things are so ordered that labor 
is become a duty, and is therefore necessary; not only be- 
cause we need it for making provisions for our life, but even 
to ease the labor of our rest; there being no greater tedious- 
ness of spirit in the world, than want of employment, and an 
inactive life." The poet Thomson turns the idea somewhat 
differently : 

" O mortal man, who livest here by toil, 
Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; 
That, like an emmet, those must ever moil, 
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date, 
And, certes, there is for it reason great ; 
For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail, 
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, 
Withouten that, would come an heavier bale, 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale." 

Admitting, then, the unavoidable necessity of labor, 
whether for good or for evil, what I propose to reflect upon, is 
the fact that much of the labor of the world, and particularly 
of this part of the world, is wasted for want of knowing how 
to use and apply it thriftily and wisely. No one man, any- 



Addresses 157 

where, in any civilized condition, can perform all the labor of 
life by himself. It must be divided and appropriated. The 
first and only man might live on the fruits of the garden ; but 
when men multiplied, and the garden was closed against 
them, and the whole earth was cursed with thorns and thistles, 
instead of yielding only what was pleasant to the sight and 
good for food, then their fate was to root out the thorns and 
thistles, to delve the earth, and to tend herds and flocks. 
Cain, therefore, was first a tiller of the ground before he 
invented murder; and then, as Cowley expresses it, "he 
quitted that profession, and turned a builder ' ' ; and as 
he built the first city, it is not to be wondered at that cities 
should, to this day, be noted for wickedness and all crimes of 
violence. Abel was a shepherd. Then came Jabal, the herds- 
man, and Jubal with his musical instruments to soothe and 
enliven labor, and Tubal Cain, the instructor of all artificers 
in brass and iron ; his pupils being the first apprentices known 
in history. Then with Noah, whose labor was husbandry, 
came the vineyard, with its mingled curses and blessings; 
the curses possibly preponderant, as if to show that the ease 
and luxury which follow labor, if unduly indulged, are a 
greater misery than labor itself. 

In every state of life, then, labor is the prime indispensable 
necessity. Without it, we cannot supply any need. With it, 
properly applied, we can not only supply all needs, but also 
all luxury and superfluity. The question is how to apply it 
properly. 

Rude and unskillful labor is a great waste of time and 
application, and is therefore extravagant. A thing that can 
be well done in a minute, is in an important sense ill done if 
it consume an hour. It may be finally done as perfectly, 
perhaps; but in many performances, the ultimate perfection 
of the work does not compensate for the waste of time in 
doing it. A woman may accomplish nicer work with her 
fingers than she can with a sewing machine; but for many 
common purposes she loses in time what she gains in perfec- 
tion; for it is not in everything that absolute perfection is a 



158 James Watson Williams 

necessity, and in much of the constant duty she has to per- 
form, the economy of time will be more than an equivalent 
for the slight defect of the performance. Still, it is always a 
great advantage to her to be trained to accomplish better 
work manually than her machine can do vicariously, and her 
own skill will make the machine work all the better. The 
very training by which she has acquired perfection is of the 
highest value, both as giving her an independent alternative, 
and as giving her a positive superiority in what she can do 
well, and the machine does ill, or is unable or too perverse and 
crotchety, to do at all. 

A like remark might apply to much other work which ma- 
chinery aids us in doing, but lacks the mind, the flexibility, the 
aptness, to do with the neatness and finish that trained human 
skill can accomplish. But to use machinery requires training. 
Nothing else will enable one to understand its mysteries, to 
comprehend its movements, to detect its defects, to adjust 
its parts, to control its working. It demands no less skill 
than mere handiwork, but it is a different kind of skill. For 
uniformity, for the power of exact duplication and copy, for 
equality of product, for some complex and huge performances 
beyond the strength or the dexterity of human muscles and 
hands, as well as for the speed and economy of work, ma- 
chinery has the superiority over man ; but it depends on man's 
brains to invent and guide it, just as much as mian himself 
depends on a higher and supremely intelligent Being for the 
power to do both. 

There is no art or sphere of toil so insignificant or so cir- 
cumscribed, as to preclude the need of training; and it so 
happens that any that is useful or necessary is also respectable 
in itself. It may be monotonous, unpretending, and without 
special attractions; or it may promise some distinction, as 
well as livelihood or wealth. But certain it is, that however 
humble or however exalted, there is no calling or pursuit of 
the least necessity, which one man or another is not provided 
or meant to perform. No niche in life is long vacant. Every 
one must be filled by some person adapted to it ; and it hap- 



Addresses 159 

pens that mankind is so constituted, that the mass of men are 
better fitted for the drudgeries of physical labor, than for those 
which demand superiority of mental gifts. Providence never 
intended that man should live by his wits without work; and 
those who pretend to have a miserable existence, — it can 
hardly be called life, but rather a poor shift to live. 

The secret of the best human work is thorough training, — 
apprenticeship : yet how little do we see of that in this country ! 
"Young America" seems to scorn anything like regular per- 
severing apprenticeship as an unbecoming slavery, even in 
those branches of industry which owe all their excellence and 
perfection to training and experience. It is true enough that 
in a new country there must be much rough work and off-hand 
contrivance and shifts, which tax ingenuity and sharpen the 
inventive faculties; but as a people multiply and refine they 
look for finish and completeness in the same things that, 
roughly done, answered mere necessity tolerably before. 
These, however, — finish and completeness, — are the very 
qualities that result from training and apprenticeship, and 
make it so desirable. There is a sleight of hand acquired by 
use, and particularly by early use, when the physical powers 
are most adaptable and docile, that all the wit and ingenuity 
in the world cannot compass. It was this sleight of hand that 
a century or two ago enabled five Frenchmen to make one 
ream of paper more a day than five Englishmen could make, 
and so command the market. There is also a sleight of mind 
highly useful in the learned professions, (nowadays so rarely 
learned,) which is no spontaneous gift of nature or genius, but 
the slow acquisition of study and experience. There are use- 
ful knacks, turns, niceties, and traditional modes and mys- 
teries in all manual and mechanical, as well as in some more 
aspiring arts, that cannot be acquired by reading or observa- 
tion simply. The best men in all trades, handicrafts, and pro- 
fessions, are those who are the most thoroughly drilled and 
practised in their work ; and, as a general thing, they are those 
who began earliest to fit themselves to it, and have longest 
persevered in it. A shifting, vacillating, occasional, fitful 



i6o James Watson Williams 

application to something, with a constant tendency to try the 
hand at everything, will never make a skillful man in any- 
thing. A Yankee is generally reputed to be a jack-of-all- 
^ trades; and if any man could ever falsify the proverb usually 
coupled with that appellation and master so much multi- 
fariousness, it is likely that a Yankee might. But it is 
impossible. Whatever can be done by quickness of appre- 
hension, by seeing deep into millstones, by comprehending the 
purpose to be achieved, and by extemporaneous rough modes of 
doing it, a Yankee may be trusted to do. But he is likely to 
botch it ; to do it simply to serve the present turn ; and then, 
in his own expressive phrase, to let it slide. He is the man 
for an exigency; a man to meet the moment; with a shrewd 
foresight of what that moment may lead to if followed by 
efforts which he does not himself propose to make, because 
he has already cast his mind upon some new project, and has 
not time enough for all. Such, at least, is his reputed charac- 
teristic, which time will modify, and is already perceptibly 
modifying. 

A trained man in any pursuit labors with greater economy 
of time, as well as with superior skill, than one untrained or 
half -trained. His work is a greater pleasure to him, not only 
for the ease with which he performs it, but for the result of the 
performance. He is conscious that, without anxious care or 
undue apprehension of errors, what he is engaged in will go 
trimly and evenly along, and he can therefore enjoy his work ; 
smoothing the wrinkled brow of labor with the solace of doing 
it easily and well. It is a great triumph when every day's 
task slips off without mishaps owing to want of aptness or to 
an imperfect and uncertain knowledge ; defects for which the 
workman feels that he is himself to blame, by pretending to 
do in a shuffling, slighting way, what, he is conscious he is not 
adept in doing. Such a workman may well lament the neg- 
lect or indifference of his parents or guardians, or perhaps his 
own early wilfulness, that let his boyhood and youth pass 
away without the apprenticeship which he now sees would 
have fitted him for a comfortable, pleasant, and prosperous life. 



Addresses i6i 

Almost every boy feels that he can aspire to excellence in 
any thing without much drudgery, and is therefore reluctant 
to be trained to any particular branch of industry, at the very 
period when such training is the most serviceable. He prefers 
to leave it to his maturer years to decide the bent and calling 
of his life. A wise parent can generally decide for him pretty 
early what course of industry is best adapted to him ; and he 
should exercise the same paternal authority or persuasion to 
incline him to it, that he would use in requiring or inducing 
him to learn his letters and get a good education. All boys 
are not fit for everything which they think they are fit for; 
yet most boys are fit for the common employments of business 
and trade, which will surely get them a living and a competency ; 
and in a majority of cases, their parents or friends can decide 
for them better than they can decide for themselves, without 
going so far amiss as to do a very serious injury if they happen 
to decide wrong. I am not speaking of exceptional cases, 
which are much rarer than people, especially boys, are apt to 
imagine. 

There are some great names in history generally noted as 
the synonyms of rare intellectual capacity, guided as if by 
inspiration. But to expect that every boy and girl born into 
the world at the rate of one an hour or one a minute, will be of 
that stamp, is to show our intense folly, and to presume on 
God's gifts, which are specially bestowed on only one or two 
such men in a century. It would puzzle you to name one for 
every hundred years since Adam's day. They are the marvels 
of mankind, and not its common stock. No : we of the com- 
mon stock must content ourselves to remain on the common 
level, — we must serve apprenticeships; and if God designs 
any of us to rise above that, His purpose will be indicated by 
some unmistakable tokens. 

The old practice of binding boys at fourteen or sixteen for 
a sufficient term of service or clerkship to make sure of ade- 
quate skill in any art, trade, handicraft, or profession was on 
the whole a wise one for the mass of the community to follow ; 
and it is yet, with such modifications as may spring out of 



i62 James Watson Williams 

improved modes of education, and a more widely diffused gen- 
eral knowledge which is earlier acquired now than then. But 
a specific training is as necessary now as it ever was. Both 
the body and mind must be inured by early practice, thor- 
oughly performed, to fit the one for physical, the other for 
mental skill, in any department of human industry. 

It is, I fear, a prevailing notion that apprenticeship ap- 
plies only to the homelier and less attractive pursuits of life, 
and not to the professions and callings of a more pretentious 
sort; and that therefore to be an apprentice is an acknow- 
ledgment of inferiority of capacity, or a sacrifice of future 
station in life. But when apprenticeship was in full vigor, 
all the professions, as well as the trades and arts, had ap- 
prentices. Of the sons of the same family, one might be in- 
dentured to a tradesman or an artisan, one articled to an 
attorney or to a doctor of medicine, one put in training for a 
clergyman, one apprenticed to the army or the navy. It was 
all apprenticeship, and a good long apprenticeship too. It 
was in every branch of art and industry a routine of daily 
service from about fourteen till about twenty-one, and even 
longer. It was always something earnest and thorough. It 
was drill, it was dicsipline, it was special education for some 
definite life-long pursuit. At any rate, it qualified most 
youths for that pursuit, so that they had it to start with, 
and to anchor by if they chose ; and in most cases they could 
not follow it without producing evidence of their service as a 
voucher for their skill in it. Of course, some might find that 
they had mistaken their calling, — the round peg was in the 
square hole and the square peg in the round hole. Such occa- 
sional misfits are unavoidable ; ■ but they cast no slur upon the 
general principle and the general experience which vindicate 
the general usefulness and absolute general need of apprentice- 
ship. 

In a certain sense, all experience is apprenticeship; but 
much of it is so casual, irregular, and not in the way of system, 
that it does not fulfill the idea. Strict apprenticeship is a 
daily experience in a continuous" course and gradation, with a 



Addresses i6 



o 



certain aim and end. This is its advantage. One who sees 
for the first time a performance or work of any kind easily 
and perfectly done by one who is skilled in it, is apt to fancy 
that it is of no great difficulty, and can be easily done by 
himself. Let him try, and he is quickly undeceived. He will 
say with Guildenstern, when Hamlet assured him that to play 
on the pipe was "as easy as lying" — "I have not the skill." 
A charlatan writing master will give you specimens of his 
dexterity touched off before your eyes, and aver that he can 
teach you to write in twelve easy lessons of an hour each, — 
about half-a-day for you to accomplish what he has been half 
his lifetime practising to acquire. When you have finished 
your course, you find that you cannot flourish a spread eagle, 
and that you are as much of a goose as the animal your quill 
was plucked from; and that your twelve easy lessons are but 
a sort of rude element of a long apprenticeship which may 
finally end in your writing so that you can read your own 
scrawl; a high achievement, even if nobody else can read it, 
which is a more common result. It takes a child with all the 
quickness, readiness of ear, nimbleness of tongue, and aptness 
to imitate, that is natural to infancy, three or four years to 
learn to talk pretty well; and yet you will find grown up 
people, with all their stiffness and slowness, expecting to learn 
a new language from some boasting professor in ten or twenty 
lessons; and when they are through with them, all they can 
say is " Oui" or " Nein." Now the most that can be acquired 
by these short cuts is some bare fundamental principles and 
rules which must be followed up and practised on with assidu- 
ity and earnest labor before you can attain any decent ap- 
proach to perfection. Stout work and persistent application 
will do everything; all the looking on in the world, without 
putting to the hand, can do nothing. It seems easy to walk a 
tight rope, to turn a summersault, to cut a pigeon-wing, to 
climb a mast, to make a horse-shoe, to hem a handkerchief, to 
thread a needle. But who succeeds in any of these things on 
a first trial; in many of them, without frequent and perse- 
vering trials? Apprenticeship — the drill of practice — is the 



164 James Watson Williams 

spring of success in all, whether the useful, the ornamental, or 
the amusing; and a little disuse sets us back to recover our 
aptness. Gymnasts, jugglers, dancers, players, and musi- 
cians really undergo more strict and wearing apprenticeship 
than is usually devoted to the useful manual and mechanical 
arts and callings, and many of our daughters are hard worked 
apprentices to music who would not very willingly be ap- 
prentices to household mysteries. More pains and sweat are 
encountered by aspirants to excellence in the showy, orna- 
mental, and entertaining arts than to the serviceable ones; 
and the standard of excellence is much higher and more ex- 
acting. We will put up with an inferior bit of cabinet work, 
an ill fitting garment, or almost any slight of common hand- 
icraft, much more patiently than we will listen to a poor 
fiddler, a wretched singer, or a bad actor ; or will witness the 
clumsiness of an awkward gymnast, an uncouth dancer, or 
a blundering juggler. Here we demand perfection for our 
money ; a perfection which is in all of them an acquisition by 
the severest, and in some of them by the most self-denying 
and the most dangerous, discipline. But we somehow toler- 
ate with patience men who set up to be master builders and 
architects, who have never been instructed, except by primers, 
in the very elements of their assumed callings ; and we employ 
them with the greatest confidence in their vaunted skill, be- 
cause they have a knack of making some pretty pictures. We 
consult a quack doctor, who pretends to cure all diseases with 
a single nostrum ; who neither knows the qualities of his medi- 
cine nor the peculiar character of our disease; but who has 
cured with it his own headache or his own indigestion, or has 
perhaps tried its efficacy upon his baby, his grandmother, or 
his cat ; who all luckily escaped dying, in consequence likely, 
of the superior efficacy of what some such learned Theban 
calls " naturaepathy, " which I suppose means that nature is 
better for conquering a disease than all the empirics in the 
world. We go to some lawyer to draw our conveyances or 
our wills, who cannot truly fill up a printed blank out of his 
own head and knowledge with any certainty that what he 



Addresses 165 

puts in is right, and is only sure of the printed part because it 
is there ; and in a great many cases out of ten, the part he puts 
in he knows nothing about after it is dry, because it is illegi- 
ble by any mortal man, with the solitary exception possibly 
of a long-apprenticed and skillful compositor in a printing 
office, who is in duty bound to read anything that is written, 
legible or illegible. We follow after some self -constituted 
minister of religion, who tickles our ears with " words without 
knowledge ' ' ; who takes up the expounding of the Gospel and 
assumes to care for our souls from a conceit or an impulse; 
who has none of the wisdom and less of the humility taught 
by our great Master; who has never served any more of an 
apprenticeship to the high calling of a Christian teacher, than 
we ourselves have; nor can show any voucher of the inspira- 
tion which flashed upon the ignorant fishermen of Galilee a 
power of eloquence and example that the very best human 
training despairs to emulate. In short, we allow ourselves to 
be overrun by pettifoggers, quacks, and expounders; — law- 
yers without law, doctors without medicine, and ministers 
without theology; and I regret to add to such a shabby list, 
journeymen and masters without apprenticeship. 

"Thorough" is a word of force that once was the cause of 
beheading two distinguished men in English history, and con- 
tributed to behead the monarch they had served ; but in their 
case it was, as Shakespeare expresses it, "an excellent good 
word — ill sorted." It is, nevertheless, a word of vital signif- 
icance in all the pursuits of life, and ought to have no terror 
for us, although it would seem that we are very much fright- 
ened by it, and look at it askance. No man can know what 
real thoroughness is without serving his time at it, except the 
man who has seen thorough work and felt its value. Without 
close training, a workman will be slovenly, wasteful, and 
unskillful; and instead of attaining the perfection which 
would give him reputation and fortune, he will spend his life 
in the inferior duties of his art, without ever rising to the 
honored position and name of the master- workman. Every 
learner, every apprentice, should be stimulated to the thor- 



1 66 James Watson Williams 

oughness which will carry him forward to the highest eleva- 
tion and finish of his pursuit, whatever it may be. Even if he 
is conscious of a capacity which is sufficient for something 
different, or something of more consideration and promise, he 
had better not throw away his mastery to seek repute in that 
something that he is not practised in. ''Ne sutor ultra crep- 
idam'' is an old Roman proverb of so much significance and 
truth that it was long ago done into very plain English, now in 
every one's mouth, "Let the cobbler stick to his last." It is 
the forcible, homely expression of a principle which is at the 
bottom and support of all perfection in any vocation. We 
naturally go to those who have spent their lives in doing some 
particular thing, if we want that particular thing well done, 
or if we want the best advice and instruction how to do it well 
ourselves. There may be accidents, propensities, instincts, 
that throw a -man off from his trade or calling; as I have 
known an eminent lawyer and judge who became so from 
having thrust his awl into his eye, and thus impaired it for the 
exercise of his chosen handicraft; and found that the same 
defective sight that disabled him from the skillful use of the 
awl, the last, and the lap-stone, was all sufficient for the lesser 
mysteries of the law; and enabled him to approach nearer to 
the perfection of Justice herself, who is represented as so 
blind, or has her eyes so bandaged, that she cannot see at all. 
Among other indispensable needs of civilized life is do- 
mestic service; which the best cultivated forms of that life 
have required should be, like any other art of civilization, a 
trained service, receiving its compensation according to its ex- 
cellence. Daughters ought to be trained to it in the families 
of their parents, not only because it is useful in itself, but be- 
cause it makes them independent in every necessity, and capa- 
ble mistresses or teachers of others. It is especially a feminine 
service, entirely out of the capacity of men to perform with 
the neatness, aptitude, dispatch, and economy of women. A 
man's sphere of labor is external as regards the household, 
and requires different qualities; absolute strength, rough ^.nd 
vigorous muscular work, or indefatigable mental industry. 



Addresses 167 

Man is the bread-winner ; woman is the bread-maker. There 
can be no question, in any reasonable mind, whatever vagaries 
audacious and unsexed theorists may indulge in, that there is 
a normal and absolute difference, made by God Himself, and 
not the result of custom or education, between the man and 
the woman, and their pursuits and duties. They differ phys- 
ically, as is palpable ; and mentally, as is observable ; and it is 
quite impossible that either should fulfill the special destiny of 
the other, until nature herself is u set and utterly reversed. — 
In respect to domestic service, as in respect to most com- 
mon vocations, we now find little or no apprenticeship, such 
as existed in the times when the daughters of noblemen and 
men of wealth and standing, as well as of humble rank, were 
put under the care and instruction of some housewifely mis- 
tress of a household, to be taught the arts and mysteries of 
domestic service and economy. Instead of anything like ap- 
prenticeship in such obvious feminine duties, we find only a 
casual, spasmodic, reluctant service, — a sulky submission to 
absolute necessity, — a mere catch-and-go of chance and op- 
portunity for a temporary livelihood, — with no seeming sense 
or feeling of proper household relations; — in short, a venal 
service that is rendered heartlessly and slovenly for so many 
dollars gained, without respect to the greater value of so 
much experience acquired, — merely to get the food, shelter, 
and pay, without any sentiment of affection or fidelity to the 
household, or any ambition to perform a duty well and thor- 
oughly for conscience' sake. Good work is not so much an 
object as good wages, and, singularly enough, as the work de- 
teriorates, the wages rise. I know that, unfortunately and 
foolishly, there is a great and common reluctance to be ser- 
vants, or clerks, or apprentices, or anything else that seems 
to imply a subordinate or subservient state of life; and how 
difficult it is to get the services of such a state of life dutifully 
and skillfully performed. But it is a false and wretched pride, 
subverting the very foundations of society and the ordinance 
of God Himself; and turning all the providential, wisely de- 
siijned, and most useful relations and distinctions in human 



1 68 James Watson Williams 

industry topsy-turvy. What can any man or woman be in this 
life but some sort of a servant? We cannot all be masters: 
we have one Master. Every trade, every art, every calling, 
every profession; — all statesmanship, all Kingship, — is a ser- 
vice ; and of all hard and intense service, a vocation or pursuit 
requiring mental vigor conscientiously discharged, is the very 
hardest, and domestic service, in the commoner forms of it, 
perhaps the very easiest. It is computed, as the result of 
scientific tests and comparisons, that two hours of brain-work 
is equally exhaustive with eight hours of hand-work. Yet 
there is a very common vague idea that the labor of the brain 
is not physical labor; as if the brain were some ethereal or 
spiritual fume, and not a substantive and vital part of our 
bodily constitution, requiring unusual nutrition and unusual 
relaxation, more than other organs of the body, to keep it in 
vigor and inspire it with workful energy. A man may plow 
or delve all day without being conscious of half the fatigue 
and distress of another man whom he envies because he has 
nothing to do but to sit at ease in his study and preach to him 
next Sunday ; while the man who is to do the preaching is so 
exhausted by his few hours of preparation that he thinks he 
would readily handle the plow six days of the week as a happy 
and healthful relief; such is his notion of the ease of mere 
muscular labor. Thus we miscalculate and misunderstand 
each other; thinking that every one but ourselves is the easy 
and fortunate man, whose vocation is but pastime. 

Washington Irving, at a time of life when his literary fame 
was well established, gives vent to his sentiments on this 
point, in one of his letters. "Many and many a time have I 
regretted that at my early outset in life I had not been im- 
periously bound down to some regular and useful mode of life 
and been thoroughly inured to habits of business ; and I have 
a thousand times regretted with bitterness that ever I was led 
away by my imagination. Believe me, the man who earns his 
bread by the sweat of his brow, eats oftener a sweeter morsel, 
than he who procures it by the labor of his brains." 

In every position, a man should feel it as an obligation to 



Addresses 169 

be well accomplished in the particulars that pertain to it; 
otherwise his conscience should impel him to decline it; al- 
though I fear very few consciences are tender enough for that. 
There are, it is true, some positions and some emergencies that 
require more of stout brains, than of special experience; and 
in such, if the brains are not lacking, the lack of special ex- 
perience may be waived. But I am speaking of the multitude 
of men, and not of the exceptional great men that God pro- 
vides, with inscrutable purpose only, at the rate of one or two 
in a generation. The mass of us are chiefly useful and ex- 
celling in some subordinate, but none the less praiseworthy 
callings; and we are the more useful and excelling by first 
earnestly qualifying ourselves, and then by pertinaciously 
following what we are qualified for. I believe that it will be 
found on examination that the greatest proficiency in many 
arts and vocations has becomic somewhat hereditary and 
constitutional, by being constantly taught and handed down 
from generation to generation in the same family or household 
connection. Thus we find that particular countries and cities 
have acquired celebrity in particular branches of manufacture 
or trade. In some, they make the best silken fabrics, in some 
the best woolen, in some the best linen ; in some, again, they 
excel in laces, embroidery, jewelry, or fancy work; in some 
are found the best husbandmen, the best shepherds, the best 
herdsmen ; and this repute of superiority has been often main- 
tained from remote antiquity. All this is the result of train- 
ing. It is not the more or less of natural gifts, although they 
have much to do with all sorts of industry; but it is the as- 
siduous and tenacious application of them to a given mode 
or art of doing things, by which great aptness, ingenuity, and 
ease are attained. This is skillful labor, and what is demanded 
by civilized people everywhere. It is particularly demanded 
in this country. How is it to be supplied ? 

It is easy to answer that wherever there is a necessity for 
any special skill, it will always be forthcoming. But how if 
there be no apprenticeship? Where will be the skill? Cer- 
tainly not amongst ourselves, but, if anywhere, amongst 



170 James Watson Williams 

foreigners well bred to their pursuits in countries where ap- 
prenticeship is still properly estimated. Even now if we want 
excellence, we depend upon the English, or the Germans, or the 
French, or the Netherlanders, or some other people who have 
had the sense to educate themselves from father to son, in 
some special Industry necessary or important to man, and to 
acquire that deft and finished way of doing it which makes 
them so necessary that we send out and entice them, by ex- 
traordinary inducements of pay and position, to come and aid 
us with true journey work. For one, I rejoice to replenish 
this country with it ; but I grieve at the needless and shameful 
necessity which compels it. We have room enough for all; 
but it is time to reflect that the same negligence on the part 
of adopted citizens for which we ourselves set them an un- 
worthy example, will eventually leave us destitute of the 
trained labor which distinguishes those countries on which we 
are drawing for journeymen and masters. When we have 
exhausted what the old world can spare, where is our own 
resource ? 

I see none but in apprenticeship here at home. We must 
bring up our children, with due regard to their bias and apti- 
tudes, by thorough drill and application, to such useful voca- 
tions as they may reasonably incline or be persuaded to follow. 
In most of these there should be no journeymen unless they 
have first been apprentices for such a term as is likely to 
establish their fitness. They should not be allowed to jump 
from a short bit of service in rudimental parts of a business, — 
while they are smatterers, — into the ranks of journeymen, 
demanding the pay of men for the work of boys, and trusting 
to their wits and presumption rather than to their substantial, 
well-grounded acquirements. This makes a poor show for 
perfection in anything ;. and if improved devices in machinery 
did not continually spring up to supply, in their way, the want 
of handicraft, it would not be long before many of our arts 
would disappear among the "lost arts." 

In one form or another, apprenticeship has existed from 
very remote times, probably ever since the division of labor; 



Addresses 171 

and there is much curious and instructive history connected 
with it. Some countries could never have attained their pros- 
perity and renown without it. Great Britain, for example, 
has not only cherished it among her own people, but has been 
ready and open for skillful laborers from every quarter. When 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, and the 
atrocities of Alva in the time of Philip II, scattered the work- 
ing population, — the thorough-bred artisans and manufac- 
turers of France and the Netherlands, — they were gladly 
welcomed in England, and helped to secure to that country of 
their refuge and adoption, a superiority of trade, arts, and 
manufacturers. The English laws early provided for appren- 
ticeship in every calling, — agriculture, mechanical arts, trades, 
shopkeeping, medicine, the law, the navy, the army. A boy 
could be indentured to every sort of service, and the privilege 
of entering into it was freely purchased by a round fee; and 
we are told that "the sons of knights, esquires, gentlemen, 
ministers, yeomen, and tradesmen came up from their par- 
ticular places of nativity and were bound apprentices in 
London," where they sometimes became a formidable force 
for mischief and for defence, as well as for labor. About a 
hundred years ago there was some disposition, I suppose, such 
as prevails among us now, to shorten apprenticeship : for the 
Parliament then passed an act to oblige apprentices to "serve 
out their tim'e for the full period agreed upon ' ' ; likely consid- 
ering that anything less would not qualify them. — In France, 
when the term of apprenticeship was five years, an additional 
service of five years was required as a journeyman, before one 
could be a master. In Queen Elizabeth's days, when it was 
the custom to intermeddle with minute affairs, she had so 
much consideration for the apprentices as to regulate their 
apparel and trinketry ; paying them the same respect that she 
paid to the "great lawyers" in regulating their dress, their 
beards, and their hair. 

There is a law of this State (and I believe of most of the 
States) of English origin, that provides for apprenticeship. It 
was, within my remembrance, mjuch more freely used than it 



172 James Watson Williams 

is now. Indeed it is now so little in vogue for general pur- 
poses according to its original intent, that it is little better 
than obsolete; for so limited is its practical application that 
one is almost disposed to exclaim ' ' Blessed and favored are 
the children of poverty and the orphan children, and. even the 
vicious children, for they are the only ones early trained to 
useful lives in the way of good old-fashioned apprenticeship!" 
Perhaps in this way, orphanage and poverty, and youthful 
wilfullness, may be an advantage to the community. The 
charitable institutions devoted to these classes make free use 
of indenturing, and generally for the full and safe term of 
seven years ; and in a late report of one of the oldest of these 
great charities I find a confirmation of my judgment. "It is 
a matter of importance," it says, "that the greatest possible 
number of boys be placed under proper indenture, and taught 
the trade of their choice. Our mechanics and manufacturers, 
offering liberal wages, look anxiously around for skilled labor. 
They often look in vain. For a pernicious idea of soft unsoiled 
hands fills the empty heads and silly minds of youth, and 
carries them into avenues of business already crowded, where 
the merest pittance of compensation can be obtained." If 
well-to-do parents will not take advantage of such legal pro- 
visions, as a step beyond and in furtherance of a common 
school education so freely provided, to train their children to 
useful vocations, a few generations will disclose a falling off in 
skill and thoroughness that will leave us behind the rest of the 
world in much that is important to our personal and national 
prosperity. 

Some who do not object to apprenticeship of itself, object 
to the usual term of it, — from puberty to majority, — and so 
are disposed to shorten it down, just as what little apprentice- 
ship we have now is shortened, to a limit insufficient for its 
object. An army apprenticeship at West Point is of the very 
strictest and most laborious kind, and is of four years' dura- 
tion, to say nothing of the preliminary preparation for it, and 
the subsequent likely continuance of it in subordinate posi- 
tions of the service. A na\^ apprenticeship is pretty much 



Addresses 173 

the same. As this sort of indenture is very much sought after, 
and the term of service is very willingly fulfilled, it may be_ 
safe to say that four years are none too much for the acquisi- 
tion of the needful skill. But of course there are differences 
in youths that justify occasional modifications. Some have 
more brains than others; and brains, although they cannot 
perform handiwork, may sensibly aid handiwork, and thus 
help to curtail apprenticeship. A sharp wit, with proper dili- 
gence, will doubtless sooner acquire skill in any pursuit than 
a dull one; and even in mere physical work of the limbs and 
muscles, the feet and the fingers, some have a natural superi- 
ority over others; a greater flexibility, delicacy, nimbleness, 
aptness, and dexterity. There are differences in pursuits, too, 
that will justify a modification; som.e being more complex 
and difficult to master than others. Yet it is to be considered 
that the general verdict of all countries has fixed seven years 
as the suitable standard for the mass of employments ; and a 
very good reason for it may be, that a large portion of the time 
is spent to the loss of the mxaster before the apprentice begins 
to be really serviceable, and that the rest of the service is but 
a fair compensation for the instruction. 

I remember when to be a simple attorney at law, (w^hen 
attorneys, I believe, were not any more simj)le than they are 
now,) a seven years' close apprenticeship was required, an 
expensive academic or collegiate education of four years being 
allowed for a part of it. Another three years of training or 
practice was required to make a counsellor. This, to be sure, 
was much short of what used to be required in England, where 
sixteen years was demanded, and one could not become a 
sergeant until he was forty. Nowadays, however, a youth 
fresh from college, will jump to be both ^ an attorney and 
counsellor at one leap, after listening to a few lectures from 
somebod}^ who has perhaps never conducted a law suit in his 
life. It is not far different in medicine and divinity, as they 
are now tolerated. I do not know but the mass of professional 
men thus easily let loose on the community may manage to 
live and learn ; but if they do not learn as they live, they will 



1,74 James Watson Williams 

never know anything like as much as their professions imply, 
or as their duty obliges them to. I do not deny but that there 
are men distinguished in every vocation, who have mastered 
their distinction without the preliminary early training that 
I have insisted on ; but I never knew of one who did not con- 
fess that such a discipline would have saved him much of the 
time and toil of his later years, necessarily spent in making up 
for his youthful deficiencies. I might name those who, with 
all their gifts and reputation, have all their lives been con- 
scious how much their usefulness and efficiency have been 
cumbered and impaired by a want of steady and inforced 
apprenticeship . 

I must not overlook one important point. Without 
trained labor we cannot have organized labor, which is get- 
■ting to be of such essential consequence. Effective organized 
labor cannot be carried on, unless all the departments of it 
are filled by men of skill in their respective callings. Without 
a thorough engineer to regulate and control the motive power 
of a cotton or woolen mill, all the accomplished weavers you 
may employ cannot make a yard of cloth ; unskillfulness at the 
engine perils the skill of all who depend upon its proper man- 
agement ; and it is the same in every branch of the work pur- 
sued; want of skill in any shows itself throughout, to the 
spoiling of the fabric and the disrepute of the manufacturer. 
We might as well expect an army to be successful without a 
competent commander, and without drilled subordinates of 
all ranks, — engineers, artillerists, infantry, cavalry, — as that 
any scheme of organized labor should prosper without trained 
workmen in its several branches ; each versed in his own, and 
mindful to do that well, whatever may be the ignorance or the 
negligence of the rest, A pin seems to be a simple and insigni- 
ficant article ; and yet before pins were manufactured by ma- 
chinery, it required the combined and particular art of fourteen 
several hands to make one; and each hand pretended to no 
special dextrousness in any part but that which it was its par- 
ticular task to handle. I will not venture to guess how many 
particular processes requiring each its particular experience it 



Addresses 



175 



demands to produce a perfect piece of cotton or woolen cloth, 
or a time keeper, or a steam engine, or any bit of the complex 
machinery by which such and the Hke things are produced; 
but this I know, they are all the result of individual skill com- 
bined in organized labor, and they all depend on faithful ap- 
prenticeship for their perfection. This is the sum of the whole 
matter; and therefore I repeat, encourage and follow honest 
apprenticeship. It will supply to this country the one thing 
needful for its material, if not for its moral, prosperity. 

I will add a word by way of conclusion to this course of 
lectures designed to amuse and instruct those who are occu- 
pied principally in manufacturing and mechanical employ- 
ments. I hope the time that has been spent in listening to 
them has been agreeably and usefully employed, as I am sure 
that the time devoted to their preparation has been cheerfully 
and ungrudgingly bestowed. I trust, also, that if there has 
been a mutual satisfaction so far, there may every year be 
found those both to lecture and to listen, as a perpetual 
memorial of the beneficence which has done so much, by the 
gift of this structure and in other memorable ways, to pro- 
mote the pleasure, the instruction, the self-respect, and the 
welfare of that most industrious and substantial part of the 
community to which all the rest are indebted for their comfort 
and prosperity; and who, in their useful sphere, have rescued 
this now prosperous city from an impending stagnation of its 
growth and importance. If, half a century ago, when I used 
to spend an occasional Saturday afternoon in fishing off the 
old bridge just by here, casting my Hne into the clear waters 
of Nail Creek (all dye-stuff now), and thinking my half holiday 
well rewarded by a string of dace, roach, and shiners, hardly 
big enough to be visible after they were scaled and disembow- 
elled, — if any man should have accosted me with the prophecy 
that within fifty years I might revisit the spot, and, on looking 
round, behold what is now within sight of it— great cotton and 
woolen mills; the homes of hundreds of artisans gathered 
from all the renowned lands where apprenticeship is cherished 
and crafts are skillful ; the products of their industry, famous 



176 James Watson Williams 

for their excellence, daily transported to all marts and climes 
— it would have been as unresolvable a mystery to me as the 
Apocalypse. The "pent-up Utica" of that day gave no such 
tokens of prosperity and enterprise. To what are they owing? 
To the foresight, earnestness, energy, and liberality of a few 
thorough men, who clung with wonderful tenacity to the idea 
and the purpose of retrieving the decaying fortunes of their 
beautiful town and neighborhood, by the employment of or- 
ganized capital and industry in the mechanical and manu- 
facturing arts — such men as Munson, Mann, Childs, Walcott, 
now reposing in the cemetery, with their monuments here, — 
these adjacent conspicuous piles consecrated to organized in- 
dustry, — and some still living to witness the success of their 
dubious and struggling enterprises, and to enjoy the fruits of 
them, and whose names will also be perpetuated by these same 
honorable monuments, on which might well be inscribed, 

"The towns they quickened by mechanic arts, 
And made the fervent city glow with toil." 

And to you who are co-laborers with them, applying the 
skill you have most of you acquired by the apprenticeship it 
has been my purpose to commend and exalt, I say, with the 
"Knight of Arts and Industry " : 

"If right I read, you pleasure all require: 
Then hear how best may be obtained this fee, 
How best enjoy'd, this nature's wide desire. 
Toil and be glad! let Industry inspire 
Into your quicken'd limbs her buoyant breath ! 
Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire 
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath." 



MECHANICS' ASSOCIATION, MARCH 4, 1870. 

THE GOLDEN MEAN. 

MEN are prone to extremes, both of thought and of con- 
duct. 

I do not offer this as an entirely original coinage of my 
own brain ; for I bear in mind that King Solomon the Wise 
said, about thirty centuries ago, that there was no end to the 
making of many books: and it is likely that amongst those 
which he had in his mind when he made that remark, or 
amongst the multiplicity of those which have since over- 
whelmed mankind, such a truism has been propounded be- 
fore in some of the uncouth tongues that descended from 
Babel; and that after the common mode of original thinkers 
in this old and oblivious age of the world, when everything 
thinkable miust have been thought and perhaps said several 
times over, I have somewhat confounded the profound obser- 
vation with my own wisdom. But whosesoever it may be, it 
is none the less a great truth, and we constantly overlook the 
moral of it. 

Only very wise men have any proper business with ex- 
tremes, although very weak ones handle them the most 
familiarly and incautiously. God made man a medium. Sir 
Thomas Browne says, between beasts and angels ^ ; not, I 
suppose, what is now-a-days called a spiritual medium, but a 
sort of balance or interjection between downright beast and 

^ "We are only that amphibious piece between corporal and spiritual 

essence, that middle form that links those two together, and makes good 

the method of God and nature, that jumps not from extremes, but unites 

the incompatible distances by some middle and participating natures.'-' — 

Rel. Med., % 34. 
12 

177 



178 James Watson Williams 

pure spirit, with tendencies each way, and a power to keep 
them to a middle way. Yet the golden mean, which ought 
to be natural to man, as the condition in which he was created, 
— the aurea mediocritas of the great Roman lyrist, — con- 
sidered in a larger way than he considered it, — is very difficult 
of human attainment; and the epithet golden expresses its 
great value when attained, whether we regard it in its per- 
sonal, its social, its civil, or its religious aspect. 

There is a constant aspiration and uneasiness of mind, 
prompting men to dissatisfaction with what is common and of 
course ; and stirring them to thought and action this way and 
that; if with no higher purpose, with a purpose of change 
and variety. There seems to be a disposition in most of us, 
and particularly in the young and those short of middle life, 
to rejoice when, although in a very unscriptural sense, old 
things are passed away, and all things are become new. The 
poet Cowper gives as an apology for this, 

' ' that the mind 
Of desultory man, studious of change. 
And pleased with novelty, may be indulged." 

But there are some severe and sour-complexioned men, 
such as Izaak Walton would not allow for competent judges, 
who do not at all believe in change and novelty, nor will they 
tolerate them as an apology for any sort of indulgence, be- 
cause that too is a thing which they do not believe in. Such 
bilious souls have, doubtless, their peculiar obscure modes 
of happiness; consisting, perhaps, in the consciousness that 
they are making somebody besides themselves uncomfortable 
and sour. "So far," as Bolingbroke expresses it, "from pro- 
moting the happiness of others, that they make their happiness 
to consist in the miseries of others." Just as Domitian de- 
rived exquisite pleasure from impaling flies, and Torquemada 
more exquisite still from impaling heretics. The only amiable 
feeling which they indulge in freely is that mysterious and 
unfathomable sort of love which proverbially connects misery 
and wretched company. But these are somewhat excep- 



Addresses 179 

tional people. The mass of men need and tolerate indulgence ; 
and wanting moderation, they indulge in extremes. There is 
a petition in some daily prayers that we may be kept tem- 
perate in our meats and drinks, and it is a very proper and 
most needful petition ; but even those who offer it very earn- 
estly are often voracious and bibacious, — gluttons and drunk- 
ards, — so prone are men to extremes. Temperance in meats 
and drinks is an obvious golden mean between abuse and 
abstinence; but it is difficult to hit and preserve it. Some, 
however, make abstinence a greater virtue than temperance; 
that is, they make the extreme more virtuous than the virtue 
itself, which is the true golden mean. Such are ascetics and 
anchorites, whose extreme can only be justified by reason that 
it enables them to escape the opposite extreme, and not be- 
cause it is a general virtue absolute, but a protection to them 
against a vice. The real virtue lies between. " Be tem- 
perate in all things." Against the extreme of indulgence may 
wisely be set up the extreme of abstinence; if it triumph, 
great is the triumph, but it is the triumph of an extreme. 
Morally, a virtue ought not to require anything but its own 
intrinsic merit, and the voice of God and of conscience, to 
approve its value, nor to require a resort to extremes and the 
antagonism of extremes to sustain it. For extremes are of 
the nature of vices, and commonly produce only a spurious 
sort of virtue out of their conflicts; a virtue in bonds and 
fetters, not a free virtue. "Between all extremes," says 
Bolingbroke, "there is a certain middle point which men of 
genius perceive and to which men of honor adhere in public 
and private life. Thus avarice and prodigality are at an im- 
mense distance; but there is a space marked out by virtue 
between them, where frugality and generosity reside to- 
gether." ^ 

We frequently see enthusiastic, ill-educated, short-sighted, 

one-sided, and well-meaning people who rouse themselves into 

fanaticism enough to start a party or a sect founded on a 

single idea, often some old one long since smothered to silence ; 

^ Occasional Writer, No. 2. 



i8o James Watson Williams 

or to push some famous newly devised remedy for some old- 
fashioned social, religious, or political evil which touches their 
sensibilities; and who set the community agog by meetings 
and resolutions, by addresses and newspapers, by pamphlets 
and books, to magnify that single idea, or to extinguish that 
particular evil; as if that idea or that evil were the most 
momentous to the whole world of all the ideas and evils that 
ever existed in it. Such people would follow the example of 
Erostratus, and burn down the best social edifice to smoke 
out an evil or perpetuate their own names and notions ; or the 
example of Mohammed, and promulgate their pet idea and 
ambition with violence and warfare. In such ways ideas and 
evils are swollen beyond their degree, and become temporarily 
preponderant in the minds and imaginations of men; which, 
if left to themselves, would providentially miake their way in 
the world, or their way out of it, as they respectively happen 
to deserve, without all the hubbub and rout that extreme men 
make about them. The bad would be smothered in their 
own ashes, and slumber peaceably and innoxiously until some 
future generation blow some obstinate wakeful spark into a 
blaze again, that grows into a fresh conflagration, awaiting a 
fresh inevitable extinguishment ; while the good would quietly 
-and surely win their way to universal acceptance. History is 
full of such fluctuations and excitements, such tides and ebbs 
of human thoughts, opinions, and conduct. They constitute 
the most interesting materials of history. 

The transition from these general remarks to what I par- 
.ticularly propose for your consideration now, is not violent, 
although it may seem to be somewhat oblique and incon- 
secutive. I wish to show, what seems to be much forgotten 
in the rush and tumult of our generation, that moderation and 
a conservative spirit and action, which are thought, not un- 
commonly, to be somewhat tame, sinister, and truckling vir- 
tues, — even if they be allowed to be at all virtues, and not 
rather faults, weaknesses, or vices,— are really of some good 
merit and account, whether in regard to society, politics, or 
religion ; and do not quite deserve to be put down and sneered 



Addresses i8i 

at by enthusiasm, half -knowledge, and experience in the milk, 
as they are very apt to be in these days. How to preserve an 
equilibrium, or more reasonably a preponderance, of wisdom 
and good sense in the midst of ominous social, civil, and re- 
ligious agitations, uncurbed impulses, unstable principles, and 
staggering faith and reason, is a problem worth meditating. 
It must be meditated, too, under the actual lights of the past 
and the passing, for we are not second sighted enough to peer 
through the shadows which coming events are said to cast 
before them. 

The world is constantly revolving from one stage of ex- 
perience to another; and somehow it happens that every 
transition is called progress, while in action, although it may 
prove to be a transition retrograde in the result; as we see in 
some dances, there are alternate movements to and fro which 
are agreeable enough for variety and pastime, although the 
ultimate conclusion of them is that you end where you began, 
and have made motions without progress. Many of the rev- 
olutions in human affairs are of this character. Many others 
are like what we call cotmtry dances, where those who have 
the first start, if they ever get through to the bottom, are 
rarely successful enough to get more than half-way back to 
their destination before the frolic is abruptly done, and they 
are left standing in the midst of an unfinished purpose, — the 
miniature likeness of a baulked revolution. 

A transitional age that is at the same time a progressive 
age, is generally also a troubled and uncomfortable age. It is 
so, because men will not deliberate ; they will not wait ; they 
will not make transitions easy. To do that is the office of true 
conservative wisdom, which "stays awhile, to make an end 
the sooner," according to Sir Amyos Paulet's recipe for dis- 
patch ; which brings about reforms by gradual improvements 
and wholesome accommodations, and by pursuing a middle 
way, which is the safest to go in, if Juvenal speaks by the 
card; and not by impetuous measures and violent resorts, 
such as profuse blood-lettings, or overpowering doses of some 
popular remedy, stimulating or narcotic. The French Revo- 



1 82 James Watson Williams 

lution, for instance, was a tremendous eruption of a combus- 
tible people, such as had no historical precedent for its fury, 
blood, and fire, and its upheaving of the very foundations of 
government; and is not likely to have any historical repeti- 
tion. The aurea mediocriias, — the golden mean, — the moder- 
ate and conservative spirit was, if not wholly lacking, wholly 
cowed and overpowered ; and the just and satisfactory oscilla- 
tion and equilibrium of the pendulum between the extremes 
has not been adjusted to this day, — now nearly a century. 
The American Revolution preceding it was, if it be not para- 
doxical to call it so, a conservative revolution, of a character 
to justify frequent repetitions under the like circumstances. 
The revolutionary leaders in France were of a different com- 
plexion from the revolutionary leaders in America: they 
lacked the moral balance and equanimity which characterized 
ours. " They acted, " to use the language of Bolingbroke, "in 
an extravagant spirit of license, rather than a sober spirit of 
liberty." ' 

They either had no Fabius, or they would tolerate none. 
Washington was our Fabius, and more; the very genius of 
true conservatism, which need not be brilliant or adventurous, 
but must be cautious and wise. The original and bolder 
genius of Hamilton was of the same stamp, and so of most 
of those whom we call the P'athers of the Republic. Our 
constitution is as different from the French revolutionary 
constitution, as scientific induction is from mere empiricism, 
because it is the product of practical and prudent minds, who 
studied the past for its examples and its warnings, and re- 
spected its experience; and not the offspring of effervescing 
passions and headstrong enthusiasm, disregarding all the 
lessons of the past, and determined to spin the world on an 
entirely new axis and make it revolve the other way. Our 
Fathers concurred in the noble sentiments of Burke's Letter to 
the Sheriffs of Bristol. — "The extreme of liberty (which is its 
abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains no where, nor 
ought to obtain any where ; because extremes, as we all know, 

^ Lett. VI., Diss, on Painting. 



Addresses 183 

in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions 
in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty, 
too, must be limited in order to be possessed." 

The truth is always to be preserved at all hazards, even at 
the hazard of occasional violent relative extremes, although 
the truth does not itself lie in extremes. A conservative 
spirit must of its nature seek to preserve the truth, and be 
suggestive of all reforms which tend to preserve it; and so 
whenever abuses of any sort reach down to the root of any law, 
custom, usage, policy, or opinion, as they sometimes will, it is 
willing that the root should be utterly grubbed out: so far it 
is a radical spirit. Most of the abuses and evils which excite 
or annoy men do not reach to the root or bottoni; but are 
mere incrustations, mosses, rust, or barnacles, easily removed 
by gentle applications of rubbing, stripping, rasping, or polish- 
ing. Lord Bacon, who says of himself that he "was not 
overhasty to raise theories," and "was always for moderate 
counsels," said to one who was speaking of a certain reforma- 
tion, "Sir, the subject we talk of is the eye of England; and 
if there be a speck or two in the eye, we endeavor to take them 
off; but he were a strange oculist who would pull out the eye." 
A right reforming spirit is thus a right conservative spirit, 
"disposed," as the same great man says elsewhere, "to find 
out the golden mediocrity in the establishment of that which 
is sound, and in the reparation of that which is corrupt and 
decayed ' ' ; and concurring with what is declared and avowed 
by one of the great reforming churches to be its principle, 
"a happy mean between the two extremes of too much stiff- 
ness in refusing and too much easiness in admitting varia- 
tions in things once advisedly established." Good reforms are 
always conservative and progressive; not the offspring of a 
sudden heat and enthusiasm, but of moderation and wariness ; 
of a desire to keep or to attain the golden mean ; of a " steady 
belief that this world can and should be quietly improved." ^ — 
"Rage and frenzy" says Burke, "will pull down more in half 
an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build 

^ Edinburgh Review. 



1 84 James Watson Williams 

up in a hundred years," — ^but "at once to preserve and to 
reform, is quite another thing." — "A spirit of reformation is 
never more consistent with itself than when it refuses to be 
rendered the means of destruction." — "There is a marked dis- 
tinction between change and reformation. The former alters 
the substance of the objects themselves; . . . reform is 
not a change in the substance, or in the primary modification 
of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the 
grievance complained of." 

There is a marked difference also between mere change and 
innovation. Change does not necessarily imply novelty, and 
is often, therefore, effected with less disturbance, and a readier 
approval, than innovation which does imply it. " Time is the 
greatest innovator, ' ' says Lord Bacon ; and ' ' to innovate is 
not to reform" adds Burke. But time destroys as well as in- 
novates; and while it ripens some things, it causes others to 
decay. Reform prunes away the decaying parts of things, or 
their redundancies, and thus renovates and preserves the rest. 
The moderate minded man will therefore warily reform, 
where he would neither innovate nor destroy; avoiding the 
hazardous extremes on this side and that; leaving the root 
which is sound, and the branches which are not diseased, and 
the leaves which indicate remaining vigor, so that the pruning 
knife may inspire fresh life and renewed growth and strength 
to the worthier parts, the blossoms and the fruit. 

There are, doubtless, occasional great emergencies in hu- 
man affairs which demand and justify extreme measures ; but 
they require calm and conservative minds and tempers to han- 
dle them successfully. "To act in extremes," says Sydney 
Smith, "is sometimes wisdom; to avoid them is sometimes 
wisdom : every measure must be judged of by its own particu- 
lar circumstances." The great requisite, in such cases, seems 
to be competent wisdom in judging how to act, which may 
doubtless be found in that ' ' multitude of the wise ' ' which it is 
said apocryphally in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, 
"is the welfare of the world." The Romans were extremely 
tenacious of liberty ; but they occasionally found it politic and 



Addresses 185 

conservative of liberty to confer absolute rule upon a dic- 
tator, who was the luicontrolled and irresponsible master of 
the republic and of extremes. I never considered the sum- 
mary emancipation of the slaves during the late rebellion as 
in any other sense a radical measure than that it was an ex- 
treme one, justified, according to Sydney Smith's postulate, 
"by its own particular circumstances." It was a wise blow, 
well and opportunely struck, by one rather averse to striking 
it, at a juncture when it might better be borne than at any 
other period likely to occur ; when the country was in that state 
of mind not only to suffer it, but to rejoice in it, as a most 
desirable end which must come sooner or later, — if later, at 
an incredible renewed cost of distraction, turbulence, and 
civil war. In truth, it was a profound, conservative, and 
self -preservative measure in regard to everything but slavery 
itself; and the conscience of the people so approved it. A 
state of war, and especially of civil war, is a state of extremes, 
suspending the golden mean as summarily as it suspends- a 
specie payment. 

Many, if not most, of those men who have distinguished 
themselves as radical reformers or bold innovators in matters 
of government, and have lived to witness the result of their 
enterprises, will be found to have finally settled down into a 
position not quite consistent with their manifestoes, — into a 
mediocrity, or into considerable modifications, of their first 
opinions and policy. They start with an impetus which they 
cannot sustain, and, like a chapman with his wares, claim 
more than they expect to realize. Sydney Smith remarks 
shrewdly that "all great alterations in human affairs are pro- 
duced by compromise": so it seems that, after the efferves- 
cence of a great revolution or innovation somewhat subsides, 
the first deliberate thought of its deviser is how to com- 
pose the still agitated waves, and settle his reforms upon some 
permanent basis. Then he discovers the necessity of easing 
off and softening down; of approaching stealthily the golden 
mean where extremes usually meet for repose from their ex- 
hausting conflicts. Thus Napoleon managed a fiery revolution 



1 86 James Watson Williams 

and anarchy tinder a pretext of being in the spirit of it, 
and ended by establishing a practical autocracy as intolerable 
as the despotism it supplanted, with the brilliant difference 
that it was enlightened, and not blind and superstitious. It 
was the despotism of one masterly mind, instead of a bigoted 
King and a crafty priesthood. Such was the golden mean 
for that occasion and that people. Cromwell, after subverting 
the kingly power, and climbing into a place of equal or more 
authority, thrust down the ladders by which he had mounted, 
and assuming a more arbitrary rule than that which he sub- 
verted, yet saw the necessity of allowing and helping matters 
to adjust themselves upon the old basis, under another name ; 
and the same people, by whose aid he had risen, as soon as he 
was dead, restored the system which he had struggled to 
change. So strong was the conservatism of the English 
people, when they found that, as Bolingbroke expresses it, 
"the state was subverted, instead of being reformed." "On 
the restoration they suffered their opinions to be bent too far 
on one side, as they had been bent too far on the other; not 
that they might remain crooked, but that they might become 
straight," ' — in other words that they might settle down into 
a golden mean. 

A great statesman, historian, and man of letters, Guizot, 
maintains as ' ' the essential condition of social well-being, the 
union of movement and repose, of conservatism and prog- 
ress." This is a true golden mean, and if the mass of men 
would concur in it, the world would see another golden age. 
To realize it, however, demands some particular virtues and 
abilities which, although they doubtless exist, are not now" in 
their proper place of influence and authority. We have very 
few of that sort of statesmen that Burke sets up for his stan- 
dard, men with "a disposition to preserve, and an ability to 
improve, taken together." We have plenty of that other sort 
who, in the language of an old Father of the Church, " seek to 
go forward still, not to perfection, but to change"; and who 
are but too readily seconded by a people that boasts of its in- 

^ Lett. II., Diss, on Parties. 



Addresses 187 

telligence, but wofully lacks in training and fixedness of pur- 
pose. We have wonderful energies, and a country almost too 
vast to expatiate in. It is with us, as it is with steam engines ; 
we require a governor to equalize and regulate our movements, 
— a force moral that shall control our minds and impulses to a 
safe moderation and mean of movement, as the mechanical 
governor controls the powerful agent which, without it, would 
follow its own natural and vigorous tendencies towards ex- 
plosions and destruction. It is with us, as it is with loco- 
motives : we require a track to guide, and a brake to check 
us, or we shall be thrown off the golden mean which we know 
to be safe, over the precipice of one extreme or into the gulf 
of another. Enlightened minds and good consciences and the 
"prudent, cautious self-control" which Burns calls "wisdom's 
root," must be our governors, tracks, and brakes to restrain 
our somewhat reckless tempers and dashing energies to that 
true mediocrity which, in the proper sense of the word, is the 
prime wisdom and the truest happiness in all the relations of 
human life. 

It is not beside my purpose, and I hope I may be per- 
mitted, to say a word in this connection, about what we call 
education. Of real education, we have very little, although 
we boast of having a good deal. We teach elemental secular 
studies in our common and private schools, and give religious 
instruction in our Sunday schools, to children generally; and 
some of them we carry along a little higher up the hill of 
science through academies and colleges, where we leave them 
to pick their way to the top with very little encouragement to 
reach it. Most of the prizes are below, and very few above. 
In all this we are worthy of the compliment which Dr. John- 
son bestowed upon education in Scotland, — "we give every 
one a mouthful, and no one a bellyful." Even those who get 
what we call a finished education according to the curriculum, 
— who stuff their paunches well with that learning,- — get little 
besides. All get no training, — that which is the vital part, 
the soul of education, — the golden mean between pure igno- 
rance and the highest book-knowledge. There is, I fear, little 



i88 James Watson Williams 

home education, secular or religious. We send our children to 
school both week-days and Sundays, until they are old enough 
to go to trades or professions, and call that education. There 
was a time when apprenticeship and professional study meant 
something, and that something was training; it was a seven 
years' discipline of body and mind to some particular chosen 
pursuit in which success or eminence could only be attained 
by skill, experience, and good desert. What is become of 
apprenticeship and professional drill? Apprentices are jour- 
neymicn or masters, and collegians are lawyers, doctors, or 
clergymen, without any sort of intermediate training, which 
is the golden mean through which crude book-knowledge and 
raw handicraft used to be transmuted into skill and perfect- 
ness. What is become of morals and manners, as an essential 
part of education? Street training has usurped that of the 
fireside; and the Sunday school, with all its great useful- 
ness to the classes it is properly designed for, is supplanting 
in many households the religious instruction proper to the 
hearth and home, and plausibly relieving parents from the 
cares and duties of that domestic training which is more 
effective for good morals and a religious life than all other 
teaching. 

If we compare conduct and policy governed by such max- 
ims and principles as I have aimed to inforce, with prac- 
tices and measures which somewhat characterize our day and 
country, we shall probably perceive a strong tendency to fly 
from the golden mean and to push extremes; and that we 
are constantly urged and led in such directions by ignorant, 
ill-trained, vain, or conceited persons, both men and women. 
Such are the boldest fomenters of great social, religious, 
and political changes and pretended reforms, which have no 
higher merit than mere innovations ; removals of the old land- 
marks which only breed confusions ; deviations from the old 
paths for which the prophet advises us to ask, and walk 
therein, for they have been long and safely trodden. We 
encounter daily the inventors, advocates and missionaries 
of new-fangled theories trumped up from exploded notions. 



Addresses 189 

long since forgotten, like dead men out of mind; or, as 
Bacon expresses it, "heresies that arise out of the ashes of 
other heresies that are extinct and amortized " ; all resus- 
citated, as attractive and weighty novelties for new occasions 
of excitement and notoriety. Such have no small following. 
We all of us know persons of no particular good repute 
suddenly becoming famous by their enthusiasm and urgency 
in favor of one ridiculous extreme or another; who assume 
to be professors or doctors of something, without any quali- 
fications that we ever discovered for any sort of professor- 
ship or doctorate, excepting as their supreme ignorance of 
everything but human weakness and folly, in which they are 
great adepts, may qualify them. Each is wiser in his own 
conceit than seven men who can render a reason. We see 
how they supplant the educated, the pains-taking, the skillful, 
and the thorough, who despise pretensions and abhor ex- 
tremes ; how they catch and detain the ears, not only of ig- 
norance and superstition, but of many knowing people; of 
those who run after audacious oddity and eccentricity ; and of 
those who, like an Athenian mob, are constantly demanding 
some new thing, as if there could be anything new under the 
sun, excepting the fresh discoveries of science, and the fresh 
inventions of ingenious art applicable to them. Even these 
also may have been " already of old time which was before us, 
and of which there is no remembrance." 

"Reduce things to the first institution, and observe 
wherein and how they have degenerated ; but yet ask counsel 
of both times : of the ancient what is best ; and of the latter 
time what is fittest. 'V 

■ It seems to me that in our private and social life we sur- 
render too much of our personal independence, truth, sim- 
plicity, and individuality, from a fear of holding to a golden 
mean of conduct lest it should be odd, marked, or unfashion- 
able. It is a petty and miserable slavery that is said to pre- 
vail more in this country than elsewhere. In dress, in habits, 
and even in the essential particulars of morals and manners, 
^ Bacon's Essay, Of Great Place. 



190 James Watson Williams 

we follow some fluctuating standard set up no one knows how, 
although its origin is generally of a suspicious character. We 
yield so much of our private judgment, tastes, inclinations, 
and preferences to tame or vicious conventionalities, that our 
personal qualities are smothered, and our distinctive character- 
istic traits of humanity are faintly visible. Our social usages 
have the operation of a mould that makes everything of a like 
pattern, which may be well enough in itself ; but the miould is 
constantly varying to odd extremes, which few have the cour- 
age to disregard in vindication of their own judgment, or in 
reproof of the misjudgment of society. We are bitterly con- 
scious of wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious ways and cus- 
toms which we have not the pluck to forego or abandon, even 
though our means are inadequate to compete with the fashion 
and show which we are slaves enough to emulate to our ruin. 
We equip ourselves in shams and all sorts of Gallic fripperies 
and deceits, masculine and feminine, often the extravagant 
devices of the equivocal classes of social life; and go gre- 
gariously in the same styles and patterns that are set forth 
-with kaleidoscopic change from some mysterious head-quarters 
beyond seas, where the genius of extremes in fashions re- 
sides, and casts utter contempt on the golden mean of taste- 
ful neatness, unadorned with gauds and glitter. Even in our 
pleasures and amusements we find no golden mean; simple, 
innocent, and inexpensive delights are tame and jejune be- 
cause they are not extreme enough; and such enjoyments 
and pastimes as attract us most, require a strong and still 
stronger dash of game, revelry, or dissipation to prevent their 
palling. 

On the other hand, there is a sort of social slavery which 
almost prevents our doing good and behaving well with any 
privacy and independence. We are packed into clubs, so- 
cieties, and companies, outside the Church and in it, to pro- 
mote every virtue and put down every vice that can give a 
name to them ; and each of them has its special pledges, and 
rules, and espionage which somewhat reproach the Bible and 
cast a doubt upon the sincerity of our religious professions; 



Addresses J91 

as if implying that a man's Christian vows at the Altar of God 
were of no force to govern conduct, without a specific vow 
made elsewhere to observe some particular virtue that has 
some particular society exclusively devoted to its particular 
protection and encouragement. It is a sort of surplusage and 
supererogation of vows and promises, that after having sol- 
emnly undertaken to keep all the commandments, we should 
be expected to "make assurance doubly sure" by pledging ad- 
hesion to a special organization for each single one of them, and 
turn the great society of all Christian people into a bundle of 
petty societies of fourth, or seventh, or tenth comimandment 
people, to which they must belong if they would not be very 
suspected and dubious Christians — Laodiceans at least. In 
the matter of charities and gifts, also, we are hardly left mias- 
ters of our purses, or competent judges of our duty and 
ability ; but are expected to be liberal according to some pre- 
scribed standard, and because others give who do not know 
how to avoid it if they would. The enginery of charities is 
getting to be something formidable, in a social aspect: what 
gifts and subscriptions and bequests will not do, fairs and 
raffles and lotteries and other questionable or unlawful de- 
vices supplement: what we do not give ourselves, is worried 
or coaxed out of our children ; and what men cannot get from 
us by argument or example, women contrive to get without 
either. No matter how much we may do by stealth in the 
way of giving, we are rated just as high for all the popular and 
blazoned charities as if we did nothing : and not to be gazetted 
as a donor to them is equivalent to being set down as a nig- 
gard. So that even our charities are constrained, and only 
the boldest find courage enough to adhere to the golden 
mean, and the freedom of judgment without which it cannot 
exist. 

The golden mean of private life, however, is that which 
most concerns our happiness, and deserves a little reflection. 
It is a theme on which the poets and essayists are particularly 
eloquent. Practically, we hardly begin to regard it before 
middle life, when our youthful enthusiasm is exhausted or 



ig2 James Watson Williams 

sobered, and we feel the vanity of worldly ambition and see 
the hollo wness of earthly honors.^ It is then that we are apt 
to replace that enthusiasm with an avaricious aspiration for 
gold, and we might be happy if in such an aspiration we did 
not exceed the golden mean, and could rest content with a 
competence. Not many of us, I fear, can join very heartily in 
Agur's prayer, nor in Cowley's : 

' ' If ever I more riches did desire 
Than cleanliness and quiet do require, 
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat 
With any wish so mean as to be great, 
Continue, Heav'n, still from me to remove. 
The humble blessings of that life I love." 

Or that other prayer, still stronger : 

"For the few hours of life allotted me. 
Give me, great God, but bread and liberty, 
I '11 beg no more; if more Thou 'rt pleas'd to give, 
I '11 thankfully that overplus receive ; 
If beyond this no more be freely sent, 
I'll thank for this, and go away content." 

How would such a prayer sound in the Gold Room, where 
such a thing as a golden mean was never heard of! How 
many a mere politician (I do not mean statesman) thinks of a 
golden mean except as so much filthy lucre as he can grasp! 
Yet it is within the reach of us all, the right golden mean. 
The Genius of Disappointment tells Hamet and Raschid that 
"of whatever may be enjoyed by the body, excess is no less 
dangerous than scarcity." Therefore avoid excess by mod- 
eration, and scarcity by industry. "Though vicious times 
invert the opinions of things," says Sir Thomas Browne, "and 
set up new ethics against virtue, yet hold thou unto old moral- 
ity." Shun, therefore, the loose new ethics that teach, "Get 
gold; honestly if thou canst, — but get gold." Even gold is 

^ See Addison, Spectator, No. 464. 



Addresses 193 

not necessary for the golden mean: a little competency, a 
clean conscience, abundant virtue, and equal freedom, is the 
whole recipe. 

" Freedom with Virtue takes her seat; 
Her proper place, her only scene. 
Is in the Golden Mean : — 
She lives not with the poor nor with the great." 



THE DEDICATION OF GLENWOOD CEMETERY AT 
ONEIDA, SEPTEMBER i, 1870. 

IT is a matter of very little importance to the dead how they 
are buried. Living, they may have engaged their feelings 
in a matter even so insignificant as that ; as they were doubtless 
also engaged in many other matters of as little or less moment, 
which occupy men's thoughts to the neglect of those that, 
according to our faith, concerned them more deeply. Thus 
we are told that Ulysses cared not how meanly he lived, so 
that he might find a noble tomb after death; and Nelson's 
great ambition was a public funeral and Westminister Abbey : 
but, dead, what mattered it to Ulysses or to Nelson, whether 
they were consigned to an urn of common pottery, or to a 
grave of commion earth, or to a tomb as magnificent as the 
long-fallen Mausoleum or as reverend and fame-preserving as 
Westminster Abbey? 

" The care of funerals, the place of sepulture, and the pomp 
of obsequies," says St. Augustine, "are rather consolations to 
the living, than any benefit to the dead." "The place of our 
sepulture, " says Tully, " is wholly to be contemned by us, but 
not to be neglected by our friends." It is the living who seek 
to magnify and adorn deaths and burials ; either, like Ulysses 
and Nelson, to perpetuate their own names and memories, or 
like Artemisia, the widowed queen of Mausolus, to cherish and 
celebrate the remembrance of those who are departed. The 
sentiment is entirely human; and so common to humanity 
that it cannot be generally quenched; nor even individually 
smothered, unless by a wonderful effort of stoicism, or by that 
imbecile indifference which is insensible to natural emotions. 

We all remember the strong and touching imprecation re- 

194 



Addresses 195 

corded on Shakspeare's stone in Avon Church against all such 
as should presume to touch his dust and bones; which is an 
expression of the natural feeling of living men respecting their 
unconscious and decaying remains, as if some tenderness and 
sensibility to exposure might still survive in them. We all 
participate in the horror and amazement provoked by that 
rage of a revolutionary rabble that ransacked and desecrated 
the venerable tombs of the Kings and Queens of France at St. 
Denis, and by that futile vindictiveness which robbed the 
grave of Cromwell to hang his skeleton on a shameful gallows, 
— more shameful to those who perpetrated such unnatural 
barbarity, than to him who had before been buried with a 
pomp and show exceeding the precedents of royalty. 

Respect for the remains of the dead has prompted various 
modes for the final disposition of them ; but the most natural 
and the miost venerable of all is that of inhumation. Abraham, 
unwilling to accept the courtesy of those who freely offered 
him the choice of their sepulchres to bury his dead, rather 
bought of them a field, with a cave in it, and all the trees that 
were in the field, for the burial of his dead, out of his sight; 
God Himself, it is solemnly recorded, buried Moses in a valley 
in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; and our Saviour 
was buried in a garden. It is also recorded of the elder Cyrus 
that "he gave command that his body should be interred, not 
laid in a coffin of gold or silver, but put into the earth, whence 
all living creatures receive birth and nourishment, and whither 
they must return." The venerable and pious Roman law- 
giver, Numa, preferred burial to burning ; and it was a proud 
nobleman of a succeeding generation who made incremation 
and urn-burial fashionable. But our grandmother the earth, 
as Bacon affectionately calls her, notwithstanding the various 
customs of incineration, mummification, air-burial, and other 
arts of preservation of beloved remains, is the proper keeper 
and depository of them all; and the most general custom of 
all nations has prevailed in favor of committing dust to dust, 
and earth to earth, as we do at this day. The sentiment of 
Sir Thomas Browne seems to be the common sentiment of 



196 James Watson Williams 

civilized men, — "In vain do individuals hope for immortality, 
or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the moon." 
We rather avoid such preservations. We almost shudder at 
the slight show of preservation that is offered by the vault 
and the chamel house, and desire that we may obscurely 
moulder into the dust out of which we are obscurely made, as 
the most fitting end for that sort of beginning. 

The whole earth, indeed, is a cemetery for the whole race 
of man, and for all created things animate ; and the successive 
layers and formations of it are reputed to be the stratified 
relics and monuments of the various tribes of both, that have 
from time to time possessed it, according to their generations ; 
animals first and man afterwards, in the generic order; and 
man, nowadays, professes the art of reading the hieroglyphics 
of nature that record the successive stages of her development 
and advancement to the present state of her existence. Think 
of the multitudinous generations of created and perishable 
beings, which have, during so many ages, crumbled to dust, 
and are reposited all over the surface of the globe, — how deep 
no one can guess, but at least as deep as the grave; so that 
when we lay out a place for our own burial, we only circum- 
scribe a certain little portion of the ashes of our ancestors to 
hide ourselves in and to commingle with, until the great day 
of the examination of the whole world, when we shall all rise 
together, without confusion, in such a way as God pleases, and 
to such scenes of immortal life as He has not chosen to put it 
into the heart of man to conceive; to "such a state of affairs, " 
as Bishop Taylor expresses it, " as it is ten to one we shall find 
it wholly differing from all our opinions here, and that no man 
or sect hath guessed anything at all of it as it is." The very 
spot where we stand, dedicating it to the purposes of sepul- 
ture, is likely the dust of tribes of men whose origin was a puzzle 
to themselves, and whose living remnants — the melancholy 
Finis and Colophon of a history without known Preface or Be- 
ginning this side of the Deluge- — are scattered towards those 
regions of the setting sun, which, according to their old super- 
stitions, they deem the nearest to the abode of the Great 



Addresses 197 

Spirit, and to the mysterious Source and Centre of perpetual 
life. 

For here and close hereabout lived, and died, and were 
buried generations incomputable and unrecorded of the abor- 
iginal population of this country. Here and hereabout was 
the scene and centre of their great gatherings about the mys- 
terious stone which had spontaneously followed their various 
migrations. Here in this picturesque and charming region of 
champaign and hill, of running stream and placid lake, re- 
sided a tribe famous as the first for council of all their hosts; 
the Oni ot a-attg, the children of the stone. Here is the spot 
where, more than a hundred years ago, they were first Chris- 
tianized, hallowed by the still fresh memory of the early 
missionary labors of Kirkland, whose influence afterwards at- 
tached them to the side and to the succor of our revolutionary 
ancestors, and kept them faithful among the faithless. Here 
was the residence of the stalwart Christian chief, Skenandoa; 
— in his prime, the Agamemnon of the tribes, — in his declining 
years, their Nestor; "the aged hemlock, dead at the top, 
through whose branches had whistled the winds of a hundred 
winters"; and whose cenotaph ought to rise, tower-like, on 
the highest eminence of these inclosures, and most conspicuous 
of your monumental ornaments, although his dust lies a little 
distance hence beside that of his Christian brother, the veteran 
missionary whom he so much revered, and with whom he 
hoped to ascend to Heaven. Here, or of the same tribe, is 
said to have been bom Logan, from whose cabin no white man 
ever went away hungry, and whose eloquence is on the tongue 
of every school boy. Here, just beyond the bounds of our 
vision, and near the famous old Council Grove, a few relics of 
which still stand, a little more than half a century ago, at this 
autumnal season, I was one of the witnesses of the consecration 
to God's service of a chapel for the Oneidas to worship in; a 
solemn service, discharged with more than his noted ear- 
nestness and feeling by that Pauline Bishop, Hobart. The 
remembrance of the plaintive and most sweet voices that re- 
sponded and chanted in their own tongue the glorious Liturgy 



198 James Watson Williams 

is one of the pleasantest and distinctest of my early days. 
That humble chapel, which for years adorned the slope where 
I first witnessed its consecration, has disappeared from its ac- 
customed place, with those for whose service it was erected, 
and with those who were my companions, the famous Bishop, 
Judge Morris S. Miller, and my revered father, the official 
counsel of the Oneidas, in their tongue surnamed the "Up- 
right Friend." This reminiscence I do not deem unworthy of 
this place and occasion; for all such reminiscences give in- 
terest and color to local scenes and their history. 

You have selected, my friends, a beautiful rural site for the 
burying place of your generations, in a landscape varied and 
singular, as if some rushing mighty waters fiercely contending 
, aforetime with their mountainous bounds and sentinels had 
suddenly retired discomfited, vengefully carrying away for 
spoil huge fragments and limbs of their stubborn enemy, which 
dropping from their relaxing and un tenacious grasp, shaped 
into hills, and hillocks, and bowlders to mark the successive 
stages of the wasting vigor of the floods, and of their sullen 
and reluctant retreat to the rivers and lakes and seas that now 
limit and restrain their rage and swelling. It is also a site 
famous for historical and traditional associations which time 
will make venerable. Its striking features should be treated 
with gentle touches of art. A rural cemetery implies a con- 
formity with nature in the general disposition of grounds, of 
shrubbery, of trees, of water, avoiding a stiff conventional 
arrangement, such as the compactness of a city or of a town 
requires by way of sacrifice to the convenience of business or 
of throngs. But ruralness is not so absolute in its exigencies 
as that all the extreme particulars of nature shall be super- 
stitiously preserved. True taste modifies and civilizes nature 
without effacing her real charms or beauties. It resolves 
an abrupt turn, a steep ascent, a rugged forest, into a gentle 
curve, a winding pathway, a shady picturesque grove: a 
rushing torrent it tames into a murmuring rivulet, a leaping 
cascade, a placid lakelet, a showering fountain. But it abhors 
straight walks of length, rectangular hedges, stiff inclosures, 



Addresses 199 

and all the forced and artificial escarpments and chevaux-de- 
frise which give a military aspect to a graveyard, as if it were 
the rampart of the Church militant, instead of the peaceful 
resting place of the Church whose warfare is accomplished. 
There, we trust, lie the bodies of those who have already tri- 
umphed, and need no further show and semblance of defence 
or offence, no obvious exclusiveness from their fellow dead, no 
walls or bastions to protect them in God's Acre, where God 
makes no distinctions, but where 

" Sceptre and Crown 
Must tumble down, 
And in the dust be level made 
With the poor crooked scythe and spade." 

In a rural cemetery, such as this is proposed to be, there 
should prevail a rural simplicity, in all its arrangements and 
embellishments, its monuments and memorials; but no where 
are there so apt to be ostentatious and offensive departures 
from such simplicity. It is not necessarily a cheap and par- 
simonious simplicity; for the most costly monument may be 
the plainest, like the pyramids which embellish the desert. 
The first consideration in memorials of the dead, exposed to 
the vicissitudes of weather and time, and especially in such an 
inconstant climate as this, is durability. Deep and substan- 
tial foundations, strength of material, solidity of structure, are 
absolute necessities for encountering and resisting the force of 
the elements and the corrosions of time. Veneering and gild- 
ing will not suffice ; nothing but solidity. The beauty of them 
must consist in form and proportion, rather than in those 
adornments of sculpture which embellish the fragile and deli- 
cate statuary suited for the temple or the private gallery, or 
even, in some propitious climes, for external exposure. But 
in orderly and well kept burial places, amid cleanly paths, 
trimmed shrubbery, and fitting landscape, the humblest stone 
or slab becomes ornamental, if adapted to the spirit and mean- 
ing of the place, and not made shocking by some violent 
breach of propriety, in shape, position, or inscription; or by 



200 James Watson Williams 

some offensive affectation of show and novelty, that betrays 
such a lack of instinctive taste and good feeling as requires 
some authoritative correction and restraint, which it happily 
lies in the legal power of a cemetery association to bestow, and 
which ought never to be spared from deference to wealth, or 
influence, or perverseness. 

Much might be said, were this the occasion, respecting 
funerals and interments. The general advice of Bishop Tay- 
lor is pertinent, that "they should be after the manner of the 
country, and the laws of the place, and the dignity of the 
person." They are very apt, nowadays, to be conducted 
without much regard to some of these particulars, and espe- 
cially are they conducted without regard to what the good 
Bishop means by the "dignity of the person." I have known 
the funeral of a dependent on the parish alms to be dressed 
out ostentatiously, with a plumed hearse, gloved bearers, and 
all the idle extravagances of a rich man's funeral, notwithstand- 
ing the remonstrances of the undertaker and of people of sense, 
against such a palpable inconsistency. It was the pride of 
relatives that exposed the memory of the dead to the criticism 
of all such as had been her almoners ; who probably felt that 
the cost of so much posthumous vanity might have relieved 
the alms basin to the benefit of the living. It reminded me of 
Cowley's remarks upon a funeral which he witnessed — " There 
was much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or 
indeed death itself, could deserve ; much noise, much tumult, 
much magnificence, much vain glory; briefly, a great show, 
and yet after all this, but an ill-sight." It reminded me also 
of that saying of Sir Thomas Browne that "man is a noble 
animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemniz- 
ing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting cere- 
monies of bravery in the infamy of his nature." There may 
be nothing remarkable in this more than its quaintness, when 
we reflect that man's whole life in this world is but from grave 
to grave, and that both beginning and ending are of equal 
importance to himself. He springs from the quickening grave 
of the womb into this present life, which is a continuous dying. 



Addresses 201 

to sink into another grave from which he is to rise, as from 
another womb, into a Hfe which will be immortal; for, accord- 
ing to that glorious scripture of St. Paul, we cannot quicken 
again except we die. 

"The resurrection," therefore, in the phrase of the Religio 
Medici, "is the life of the grave." The hope and belief of 
that it is which illumines our sepulchres — -the humblest sod, 
the most ostentatious tomb — with cheerfulness; and it is 
proper to aid this sentiment, both in funerals and in cemeteries, 
by such sober embellishments of art and taste as are not dis- 
cordant with that dainty melancholy that soothes the feelings 
of those who linger among graves, and love to indulge in those 
autumnal contemplations which beseem the place of graves. 
When Nature, as now, is devesting herself of her verdant garb 
to put on the russet and sombre raiment for her winter burial, 
in the certainty of a vernal resurrection, I think that every one 
of us is the better for an occasional hour spent in attuning his 
heart to a harmony with death, by ruminating among the tombs 
and memorials of those who have triumphed over mortality, 
and by their examples haVe taught us how to die. At such a 
time and in such a mood, the oldest graveyard, however rustic 
or dilapidated, however tottering its stones and monuments, 
has its resistless fascination, for any thoughtful mind, although 
it be a graveyard of strangers. The most uncouth lettering, 
and the most grotesque ornamentation, excuse themselves to 
our differing taste by their venerable years, by their quaint 
simplicity, or by the antique tokens they give of affections and 
remembrances akin to our own. I think no living man is ever 
the worse for a graveyard; and doubtless the souls of the 
virtuous departed are the happier and the better for it; for 
through that gate they make their joyful resurrection. It is 
their 

... port of rest from troublous toil, 
The world's sweet inn from, pain and wearisome turmoil." 

We are assembled here, my friends, to devote in a formal 
way to the hallowed purposes of sepulture these grounds and 



202 James Watson Williams 

enclosures, so well fitted by nature and adapted by the hand of 
art, and to dedicate them to you and your posterity for the 
possession of a burying place forever. It is a sacred posses- 
sion, secured from all incroachment and disturbance by solemn 
and -especial guaranties of the law. Here no legal force can 
devest your rights; no writ can wrest them away; no muni- 
cipality can disturb your graves by streets and thoroughfares ; 
but once having an occupancy here, your slumbers can never 
be lawfully disturbed until the last trump shall arouse and 
summon you to that awful final process and judgment from 
which there can be no appeal and no escape. May you all 
know, in the language of the most poetical of Bishops and 
Divines, " how blessed a thing it is to die in God's favor, and to 
be chimed to your graves with the music of a good conscience." 



LAST WILLS— UNSOUND MIND AND MEMORY. 

(From the American Journal of Insanity, for October, 1868.) 

THE force of a last will is wholly conventional. The mo- 
ment a man dies, all his right to property dies with him. 
As he came into the world, so he goes out of it. Whatever he 
acquires from his birth to his death is his for possession, for 
maintenance, for enjoyment, for dutiful contribution and for 
free giving, as he goes along. It is at his disposal, so long as 
he lives to dispose of it. When he is dead, his natural powers 
and rights, whatever they may be, die with him, and "there 
an end." This is the state of the case simply and absolutely. 
But man leaves behind him when he dies, not only all his 
possessions, but usually children, or parents, or brethren, who 
are either in a state of dependence upon him, or so intimately 
connected with him, that the first spontaneous suggestion of 
the social state is, that they should have the benefit of his 
industry and his acquisitions ; and, therefore, the first custom 
or law of a social state is, that they, in a certain gradation of 
ties, and perhaps, too, because they are in the actual posses- 
sion, should inherit and enjoy his property ; children first, and, 
failing these, then the nearest of consanguinity. That there is 
a touch of natural and instinctive feeling in this, is witnessed 
by its universality, even amongst the most unconventional 
savage tribes. It is wholly independent of any expressed will 
or direction of the deceased person, or any attempt of his to 
regulate the descent or distribution of what he may leave 
behind him; but so strong is the presumption of such an in- 
stinctive intent of his, that, to this day, such a disposition is 
made by general usage or by positive law, in most civilized 
countries, in cases of intestacy, as the disposition which would 

203 



204 James Watson Williams 

most surely accord with the wishes of an intestate, had he Hved 
to express them. 

The right to make a will, particularly one conflicting with 
this congenial sentiment, that shall have a posthumous vigor 
and be any wise obligatory, is, therefore, not a pure natural 
right. Possession, which was probably the first recognized 
right to anything, and is still claimed to be " nine points of the 
law," was commonly in favor of the family of a dying man; 
and nothing but superior force, in the primitive stages of 
society, could dispossess them. As there might be more than 
one descendant in such possession, the question would obvi- 
ously arise which one should be in loco parentis and take the 
whole relicta, or whether all should take equally; or whether 
all the brothers alone ; or the sisters equally or in some other 
proportion with them ; or all the sisters alone ; or the elder or 
the younger son, should take the whole, all being, at the death 
of the common ancestor, in common possession. The dispute 
which such doubts and rivalries would occasion, would natu- 
ally suggest to the possessor of property the idea of making 
some equitable disposition of it, to be effective after his death. 
He might, indeed, distribute it among them absolutely during 
his life time, by present gift ; but then he would stand in King 
Lear's danger ; for he might have unnatural sons and daughters, 
who, after getting his possessions, would oust him from the 
enjoyment of them, and reduce him to the nakedness of his 
birth, long before the natural period for the inevitable naked- 
ness of his death. 

As social states matured, various customs sprang up, and 
governments began to assume different forms, demanding dif- 
fering rules to regulate the possession, ownership, transfer and 
inheritance of property. The rules also varied regarding rights 
to the soil, and rights to personal effects — to what was per- 
manent, and to what was transitory. Without pursuing the 
history of these diversities, it is sufficient to say that, as a gen- 
eral custom or law, the property of the father of a family de- 
scended to one or more of his children, with certain possessory 
rights to a surviving wife; until, finally, the power of dis- 



Addresses 205 

posing of property, at first the personal, and then the real, 
by a will of its owner, expressed more or less formally during 
his life time, became, in all civilized countries, a generally 
allowed and legal mode of conveying it. 

But this power when finally conceded, was never without 
some restraints, the badges of its conventionality, and of its 
subservience to positive, rather than natural, law. Indeed it 
is, and always has been, (formerly more than now,) so various 
in various countries as to extinguish the idea of any instinctive 
feeling so prevalent and uniform as to confirm the theory of a 
natural right. In England, imtil Henry VIII, a man could 
not make a will of real estate, except by a clumsy evasion of the 
common law in the guise of a conveyance to uses ; and in this 
country, the details of the law of inheritance and of wills differ 
sensibly in the several States ; all concurring, however, in such 
a general preference of the family and descendants as goes far 
to countenance the conviction that inheritance is really more 
of a natural right than the right to make a will disturbing it. 

Yet the power to make a will giving a different direction to 
the posthumous course and disposition of property, is of such 
long and universal allowance, that it is now almost as strong 
as if it were a natural right, like the right to breathe, or the 
right to work. " Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with 
mine own ? " is a triumphant interrogation affirmative. Even 
natural rights, however, must, in the social state, submit to 
much clipping and shearing to make them decent or sufferable. 
We do not tolerate the natural right to go naked (except in 
ballets and bagnios), nor the natural right of a promiscuous 
intercourse of the sexes, nor the natural right, so claimed, of 
suffrage, nor the natural right of the strongest to appropriate 
whatever comes in his way; although it must be confessed 
that we are restiff under some of these restraints, and are prone 
to antiquate and cast off many respectable conventionalities, 
and much positive law, particularly if it be of the Decalogue ; 
as if savage life were, after all, the only free life ; and a state 
of nature, on the whole, the easiest, as it is the most slip-shod, 
of human conditions. 



2o6 James Watson Williams 

The testamentary power thus being, for any binding force 
it has, the creature of the law, the legislature must be quite 
competent to modify and regulate it according to the exigen- 
cies and policy of the state ; and, amongst other things, to pre- 
scribe what condition of mind shall exist to give effect to any 
declaration in the nature of a will, and what indications shall 
be deemed, on the whole, as evidence of the state of mind pre- 
scribed. It is quite its right to say that any will that over- 
looks the common claims of wife, children, or near relatives, 
shall be void ; but such an oversight need not therefore be set 
down to the account of any unsoundness of mind or memory. 
It does say now, in some States, that no will made in articulo 
mortis, or within a given period next preceding death, shall be 
entirely valid if it gives to charities, or out of the family, more 
than one third or some other reasonable portion of the estate : 
it is a void will as to that particular devise or bequest; but 
this cannot be for unsoundness of mind, as that would taint 
the whole will, which is not the purpose of the law; but the 
purpose is to prevent a wrong to the family of the testator, 
and counteract the influence of superstitious or perverted feel- 
ings over him, at a moment when his faculties may be fluttered 
by apprehensions, or when he may be overpowered by vexing 
and pertinacious solicitations. It provides that a will, how- 
ever sane a man may be, which is extorted from him, or which 
he is cheated into, or which he makes when drowned in his 
cups, and his memory is a "fume," as Macbeth expresses it, 
shall be deemed no will; that it shall not be valid, if it makes 
no provision whatever for his wife and children, unless they be 
otherwise sufficiently provided for; and all this, without any 
necessary impeachment of the testator's sanity. It is evident 
from the adjudged cases, that the struggle of the law is to 
thwart, on every possible ground, every testamentary disposi- 
tion of property that unnaturally disregards the common claims 
of kindred; and, at the same time, to tolerate and sustain 
every free disposition of it that does not wholly evade those 
claims. The least decent acknowledgment of them preserves 
the vitality of a will that is otherwise sound ; and if the testa- 



Addresses 207 

-tor have no such claimants on his good remembrance, an en- 
dowment for favorite horses, dogs, and cats, or for a hospital 
at Joppa or Jericho, or for almost any other odd purpose under 
the sun, (if not too much under the moon,) will not of itself 
impeach his testament as for unsoundness of disposing power. 
The general right to make a will being conceded as a social 
necessity or convenience, most of the practical legal questions 
touching the validity of wills, aside from mere questions of 
form and technicality, respect the real soundness of the mind 
and memory of the testator. The cases embrace almost all the 
infinite vagaries of the human mind, ranging from the weakest 
imbecility to the most errant and extravagant fancies; and 
hardly one of them, from the simplest to the most complex, 
has escaped some sort of judicial criticism and settlement. 
Of course it is impossible that any inflexible rule or statute 
should be at once comprehensive and minute enough to meet 
all the equities of such a variety of cases, depending upon a 
just insight into the actual capacity and motives of ever- ver- 
satile human minds. They are better capable of being fairly 
settled, individually, as they arise. Some equitable and ad- 
justable process is more likely to hit the truth of each case than 
any general constricted formula. It is doubtless a good gen- 
eral rule, and it is therefore a rule of positive law in most 
countries, that a man of unsound mind and memory is incap- 
able of making a will. But the same positive law does not 
venture any farther with its absoluteness, perceiving the in- 
vincible difficulty of defining its terms; and the judicial tri- 
bunals are wisely left to construe, adapt, and apply it. The 
common law is more elastic for this purpose than any statute ; 
and its adjudications, although often enough conflicting, are 
on the whole more satisfactory in the particular cases, than 
the Procrustean rule of a legislative act. The one considers 
each case by itself, and under its own distinctive lights and 
shadows ; the other strikes a particular level, above and below 
which there are many cases that must be unceremoniously and 
arbitrarily gauged to the standard. The vagueness of the 
term "unsoundness of mind and memory" leaves room for 



2o8 James Watson Williams 

impeaching almost every testament made dtiring sickness or 
weakness ; and exposes the decision, in consequence of the un- 
certainty of the standard, to everlasting doubt as to its exact 
or even approximate justice. This is an inevitable infirmity 
of all human tribunals. 

There are some hesitating and uncertain minds, wavering, 
as an apostle says, like a wave of the sea, that really never 
exactly know what their will is ; and, after a formal testament 
is made, are by no means so satisfied that it is their real will, 
that they are quite willing that death should irrevocably seal 
it : it is difficult to say of them that they ever had a positive 
decided will of their own. Yet the usual formalities suffice to 
make the testaments of such persons valid : legal unsoundness 
of mind cannot be predicated of them. Others there are whose 
will is determined enough, and evident enough; but it is so 
perverse and impliable, that whatever it has fixed upon can- 
not be swayed to any measure or terms of moderation, or 
what is commonly called reason: the miind so runs upon one 
purpose of partiality or prejudice, without any fair doubt of 
the mental power, or of the disposing mind and memory, that 
its will must stand for the law of that case, however unjust, 
and, to the common sense and feeling of men, however un- 
reasonable. 

So that the testaments of some sane men, as full of absurd- 
ity, and eccentricity, and imjust feeling as the testaments of 
some insane men, are legally valid, while the others are invalid : 
nay, the sanest wills of insane men stand no sort of chance with 
the insanest wills of sane men. It is one of those anomalies 
that betray the incompetency of human jurisprudence. 

But although a broad rule of law may be a good and safe 
general maxim, and yet fail to meet all the cases within its 
sweep, thereby showing its practical deficiency ; yet a principle 
of equity is allowed to step in and rescue strongly exceptional 
cases from the rule. Such is the case with wills ; which, as to 
whatever touches the pith of them, (the intent of the testator,) 
and not the mere formalities of execution and publication, 
which equity does not presume to meddle with, are saved from 



Addresses 209 

the grasp of a vague general provision by the construing and 
adapting powers of judicial tribunals; which convert into a 
graduated scale of Vernier minuteness what was designed to 
measure only in the gross of significant dimensions, without 
regard to the more or less of fractional parts. The law bravely 
disregards mere littleness : de minimis non curat. But equity 
condescends to minuteness for the purpose of getting at a 
man's intent and meaning in his particular act. Although 
equity has been usually regarded as a sort of distinct and side 
tribunal, complementary to the common law, yet the common 
law itself may claim for its chief merit both an expansible and 
a contractile power according to times and exigencies, adapt- 
ing the spirit of a principle to the necessities of a case, without 
sacrificing the principle itself — a power which has in it the 
very germ of strict right and good conscience. Perhaps in 
nothing is this more observable than in the inforcing or the 
invalidating of wills. Each case of a will, is like each case of 
insanity, sui generis. There seems to have grown up a sort of 
concurrent jurisdiction, or, at least, a correspondence of pur- 
pose, in the various courts, to make wills efficient to the closest 
verge of palpable inefficiency ; to infuse into early youth and 
preserve to the latest old age, the testamentary capacity and 
vigor, and to maintain it against all shadows and suspicions. 
By the common law, and under some of our statutes, infancy 
may make a good will long before it may make a good con- 
tract; and old age may do so after it becomes questionable 
whether its contract would be any longer valid. Until thirty 
years ago, in England, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, 
might make a good will of personal estate; and a boy of 
eighteen and a girl of sixteen may still do so in the State of 
New York. Thus the testamentary capacity is of earlier ma- 
turity and of later decay than perhaps any other recognized 
legal faculty. The reason is, that a simple exercise of the will 
• — the act of a single mind — requires less force and activity of 
the disposing power than the complexity of a bargain, where 
two or more minds must encounter, discuss, and conclude. 
The one implies a state of mental repose, conducive to 



2IO James Watson Williams 

clearness of the faculties ; the other, a state of mental conflict, 
conducive to excitement and doubt. 

The usual coupling of the memory with the mind in the law 
phrase defining the disposing power necessary to give life to a 
will, is a somewhat striking and pregnant pleonasm, as if to 
give prominence to the memory as the distinctive faculty of 
the mind most necessary to the exercise of the power. It 
singles that out from the other faculties, as if human experi- 
ence had shown that of all the mental traits the memory was 
the most significant, as well as the most uncertain, and there- 
fore the most to be suspected and criticized. Macbeth calls 
it "that warder of the brain"; yet it often slumbers on the 
watch ; and as a physiological truth, it is the first of the facul- 
ties to stagger and decay, without sensibly disturbing the 
equilibrium of the mind ; while, when that is most disturbed, 
as by insanity, the memory is often the most active, the strik- 
ing exception being in the case of Dementia. It is liable to 
various tricks and failings that are troublesome and perplex- 
ing, but many of which do not vitally touch the disposing 
capacity. If we say, in an absolute unlimited way, that a 
defective or " unsound" memory shall disqualify, we disqualify 
many men who, notwithstanding, are by daily acknowledg- 
ment, abundantly competent for all the common purposes of 
life and business. A man, for instance, may not be able to 
recall the name of his son Dick, when he wants to remember 
him in his will, but may still have a perfect recollection of his 
person and identity, ^ — may have his true image in his mind and 
memory, — and be just as sure that it is that particular son he 
means to give his property to, as if no word but Dick were at 
his tongue's end. His intent is obvious enough, and any sug- 
gestive bystander can prompt the name, which he at once 
recognizes and pronounces, with a muttered anathema upon 
his own stupidity; and straightway forgets again. Dr. John- 
son in his infantile petticoats could learn a collect in the 
prayer book before his mother could get up two flights of 
stairs ; and yet he could, on occasion, forget the word " fugaces ' ' 
in the familiar ode " Posthume." This he called a "strange 



Addresses 211 

trick" of the memory; but it seems to be a favorite one. So 
a man may, with great vividness, recall particular scenes and 
events, and be utterly imable to recall dates and names coupled 
with them. So, one's memory may be perfectly unimpeach- 
able, nay, particularly strong, on a favorite class of topics, 
and quite confused and at large on some or perhaps all others. 
It is a common accompaniment of senility that the memory 
of early and old events is bright and unequivocal, while that 
of nearer and fresher ones is indistinct or obliterated. In our 
presence, as we write, is a gentleman of seventy-six transacting 
his daily business with accuracy, whose competency to make 
a valid will no one would doubt ; who forgets or confuses ordi- 
nary events of the day or the week before; and who daily 
asks some question which he asked yesterday, without being 
conscious of the repetition, until the answer arouses him to a 
mortifying recollection of it ; and yet an event of ten years or 
forty years since is clear in his remembrance. He could, 
doubtless at this moment, without book or reference, specify 
the principal items of his estate, and dictate the disposition of 
it, with as much promptness and decision as he makes his 
entries in his ledger. An old poet says, 

"none grow so old 
Not to remember where they hid their gold"; 

which means that in matters of property and estate, the 
memory is long-lived and tenacious, and not so often impeach- 
able as dissatisfied heirs and expectants would have us believe. 
Montaigne, with all his fertility of quotation, indicating at 
least a good memory of ideas, could not call his servants by 
their names, and says that he "has no memory at all" ; which 
means no more, perhaps, than that he had so little that it took 
him " three hours to commit three verses " ; it was of the slow, 
and not quite the sure sort. Waller often forgot his accus- 
tomed "grace," and even the Lord's Prayer. Boswell tells 
Johnson of a worthy gentleman who forgot his own name; 
which, (surmising that it was his own father,) was not very 
remarkable, inasmuch as it was written "Auchinleck" and 



212 James Watson Williams 

pronounced "Affleck," and might confuse a pretty strong 
memory; although Dr. Johnson thought it was a case of 
"morbid oblivion." But he also thought it was incredible 
that a man's mind should be weak at seventy, probably be- 
cause he did not perceive any waning of his own. We have 
lately heard of a gentleman, a professor in a college, whom no 
one would suspect of "unsoundness" or "morbid oblivion," 
who, going to the post-office for his mail, when he got there, 
could not, with all his fingering of his forehead, give his name, 
and finally turned away in desperation to pick it up, by some 
chance, outside. Near the street door a gentleman met and 
saluted him by his name, and was surprised that he got no 
other acknowledgment than a hearty "Thank you — thank 
you," when his friend rushed rejoicing to the post-office box 
with his recovered cognomen, fearing it might wriggle out of 
his head again before he could bait with it for his letters. 
This reminds one of Newton viewing the remains of his chicken, 
which some kind friend had taken the liberty to pick clean 
while he was solving some intricate problem, (leaving what 
Berkeley might have not unaptly called "the ghost of a de- 
parted quantity,") and gravely exclaiming, "I thought I had 
not dined, but I find I was mistaken." These cases of absence 
of mind, or abstraction, are often confounded with positive 
defects of memory, especially when they arise from a torpidity 
or sluggishness of the brain that often accompanies a state of 
weakness or ill-health. Many a man never forgets a face, who 
often forgets the name that belongs to it. Cases might be 
abundantly accumulated to show how uncertain and vague 
the term "unsoundness of memory" is to measure the com- 
petency of men in their other faculties. Few memories after 
middle life are without a flaw; and the precise disqualifying 
grade of "unsoundness," is too variable for the just application 
of any general rule. 

We once knew, attending an academy, a pupil of thirty 
years or more, whose advancement was far short of his age 
and his early opportunities. His story was that, during his 
boyhood, when fairly forward in his studies, he had a fit, or 



Addresses 213 

a succession of fits, on recovering from which his memory was 
a perfect blank. He did not know the alphabet, and had to 
commence anew, at the very foot of the hill of science, and 
recover all his steps. A time came in his new progress when 
a portion of his old attainments flashed back upon him, and 
gave him a sudden lift. He was perhaps never of a strong 
mind ; but when we knew him, a senior among juniors as re- 
garded years, but a junior of the juniors as regarded school 
knowledge, he had a most wonderful memory, especially for 
numbers and for historical events. He would rattle off the 
whole course of American history and of Napoleon's campaigns, 
then fresh, giving days, years, events, and namfes with amaz- 
ing readiness and the most positive certainty. He took part 
in the debates of a club, with somiC diffidence and hesitancy of 
speech, and was the infallible historical reference and index. 
He would repeat, with unerring correctness, fifteen or twenty 
of the most uncouth and unrecognizable words and names, 
on the bare sight of them, glancing over the list, turning the 
paper, and reciting his lesson as if it were a well conned page 
of the spelling book. Some years after, we met him as a 
teacher of a village school, where he was a favorite with his 
pupils, and gave satisfaction to their guardians. He was a 
simple man, somewhat short-witted, and somewhat eccentric, 
credulous, of mild and pliant temper, and showing evidently 
enough, by his inconsecutiveness of talk, some shattering of 
his faculties ; but as for his memory, in the respects we have 
noted, it tended to a painful excess ; a defect by way of super- 
fluity, rather than of lack. Is such a man of sound mind and 
memory in law? We have read of a person who, after an 
attack of fever, permanently lost the knowledge of one of the 
letters of the alphabet. How far should that impeach the 
soundness of his memory for the making of a will ? Respecting 
the seeming prostration of the faculties by a general paralysis, 
we know of a case of twenty years' standing, of a young man 
struck down to such a complete weakness that he had no power 
left to express a want except the motion of one eyelid, and so 
remained in a state of apparent idiocy or complete imbecility 



214 James Watson Williams 

for a considerable period ; afterwards very gradually recover- 
ing his physical power, as shown first by a nod, then by a 
raised finger, then by a movement of a hand, and then by an 
imperfect tongue; and, what was more surprising, he after- 
wards assured us that during all this hopeless state of helpless- 
ness, his mind was undisturbed and as clear as ever; that, 
with a physical power of expressing himself, he could have 
dictated a letter of business, or directed the management of an 
affair, with the same readiness and intelligence that he ever 
could; that he had heard and observed all that was passing 
around him, and was conscious of the misapprehensions and 
blunders into which his physicians and nurses were deceived, 
and could have corrected much that was amiss in the manage- 
ment of his case. For aught that appears in his conversation 
and letters, (for although blindness has added its cloud, he still 
writes letters very intelligibly by mechanical aid,) his mind has 
maintained its natural vigor amid shocks that seemed at times 
to have prostrated every thing but mere vitality; and with 
the exception of one distressing and protracted turn of unre- 
mitting neuralgic pain in the head, when he would have wel- 
comed death as a relief, he has been constantly cheerful and 
animated. Of course, during the period of his extreme pros- 
tration he could not have made a will, because he could not 
command any means of communicating and verifying it ; but 
the incapacity was not of mind and memory — it was merely 
physical — a want of the power of signifying his will. When he 
had so far improved that he could nod assent, or commimicate 
his wishes by pointing out letters with a pencil in his lips and 
thus laboriously spelling out words, and could perhaps attest 
a will by making his mark, although his mind and memory 
were abundant for a testamentary act, yet the legality of it, 
performed under such questionable conditions, would probably 
be contested. A man so wrecked is very apt to be considered 
as incapax, when, in truth, his wits may be brighter than ever, 
and his observing and reflecting powers sharpened to a keener 
edge, and concentrated, by seclusion and self-dependence, into 
im wonted strength. Such instances show that no common 



Addresses 215 

rule is equitable : each case must stand by itself, and be judged 
by its own characteristics. 

Many men who are not insane have a defective, a weak, or 
a confused memory. It is a point to be considered with refer- 
ence to their capacity for doing or directing some particular 
thing, or for performing satisfactorily the duties of certain 
stations in private or public life. One may have wit and 
memory enough to bestow all his property on a grateful and 
kind daughter, cutting off an unfilial and reprobate son, with- 
out having sufficient of either of those qualities to enable him 
to comprehend a testament stuffed with devises over, contin- 
gent remainders, provisions to meet the possibility of issue 
extinct, and all the ingenious cobwebs of a lawyer's brain that 
some sane men put their hands and seals to as if they under- 
stood exactly what they were about; mainly trusting to the 
intelligence and good faith of their counsel, rather than to 
their own wits. Indeed, some wills of lawyers have not stood 
the test of a legal construction, verifying the adage that 
"whoso is his own counsel hath a fool for his client." So an 
imbecile mind may be too narrow to understand the nature 
and drift of some complex transaction, but can fully com- 
prehend and direct a simple one. So many shrewd men may 
be puzzled to appreciate the relative values of property, con- 
sidering the uncertainty of mediums of exchange and the 
fluctuations of value, and make their wills with a wonderful 
miscalculation of results: indeed, one who has been accus- 
tomed all his life to gauge values by a silver dollar, may, with- 
out any imputation of unsotmdness, be excusable for some 
inability to gauge them by a greenback, and go marvellously 
wide of the prospective worth of a favorite comer lot, set aside 
for the rich provision of a minor child. To put such incom- 
petencies and misjudgments as these on a footing with insan- 
ity, and allow them to invalidate wills, seems to be an unneces- 
sary proposed innovation, and an unreasonable slur upon the 
testamentary capacity. Such are cases for courts and juries 
to judge of as they arise ; and if such circumstances are really 
of force to impeach wills, let it be an inherent force of their own, 



2i6 James Watson Williams 

like that of fraud or undue influence, and not borrowed from 
a source of incapacity to which they are in no wise attributable, 
to wit, insanity; which has enough of its direct offspring to 
cover, without sparing a comer of its cloak to shelter all its 
putative cousins, or more distant and questionable relations. 
This is an error of some who urge general legislation on the 
subject of wills, making certain indicia positive disqualifica- 
tions, as of the nature of insanity. Perhaps a wiser step of 
general legislation, and more to the root of the matter, would 
be to cut off and extirpate all testamentary power, except that 
of mere guardianship, and leave all estates to follow the laws 
of intestacy, as the most conformable to the innate sense of 
natural right. It would compel beneficence to do its good 
deeds in its life time ; save a world of vexation, family discords 
and litigiousness ; and hasten the millenniumx by a thousand 
years to all the world but lawyers. Besides, if no wills could 
be made, and all were compelled to die intestate, it would do 
away with a certain superstitious apprehension of death that 
is associated with last wills, and take the sting out of Lord 
Bacon's shrewd inference : " I gather that death is disagreeable 
to most citizens, because they commonly die intestate, this 
being a rule, that when their will is made, they think them- 
selves nearer a grave than before." 

Insanity seems to be regarded in two different lights by 
the law, as it is viewed from the criminal and the civil side. 
It is broad for a shelter against criminal charges, and narrow 
to cover evasions or breaches of the usual responsibilities of 
civil life. The thinnest cloud of unsoundness will sometimes 
obscure a criminal intent; but it may not cast the lightest 
shadow upon the ordinary transactions of business, not even 
upon the disposing capacity of a testator, unless his will be 
unusually odd or malevolent. Nor is it a distinction without 
a difference, psychologically, as well as legally. The same 
mind may, in a state of repose, quietly order the daily routine 
of affairs, and consider sensibly of the disposition of property, 
that will be put beside itself and lashed to frenzy b\^ some 
inauspicious provocation or disturbance. Its equanimity is 



Addresses 217 

perfect in a calm, but wholly wrecked by a tempest, which is 
the only real test of it as a virtue of any particular value. 

" Rebus angustis, animosus atque 
Fortis appare." 

is the rule of an even mind. The ordinary business of life is 
not conducted in a whirl of excitement ; but crimes, and in- 
sanity too, are often the offspring of it. Thus for invalidating 
a testament, which is usually the long-cogitated and composed 
act of a thoughtful man, a greater suspicion or proof of im- 
soundness is commonly requisite than for shielding against 
punishable offences. Even a man under actual guardianship^ 
as one of discomposed mind, may make, in a clear, lucid inter- 
val, a valid will ; the guardianship only serving to change the 
burthen of the proof from one side to the other. A lucid in- 
terval restores a man to his rights of sanity, and needs only 
to be proved when it cannot technically be presumed. If in a 
fit of passion, or of sourness and impatience, a man makes an 
absurd will, which in a better mood he would readily cancel, 
yet the law, on existing general principles, would uphold it; 
for it is not its province, nor is it within its power, to regulate 
men's tempers, their partialities, or their prejudices, or the 
imbecoming or spiteful displays of them, if they be short of 
criminal. Yet it goes farther, perhaps, in the assumption of 
such a power in the matter of construing wills, so as to make 
them conformable to equity and good conscience, and to give 
effect to what might be presumed to be a reasonable intent of 
a testator, than in any other attempt to exercise it. It so 
construes inconsistent, or conflicting, or dubious clauses of 
such instruments, as to make effective some obvious, or nat- 
ural, or seeming, or reasonable intent of a testator, without 
presuming to make his will for him, or to go directly in the 
teeth of its positive provisions ; which, if they are intolerably 
bad, it will rather stretch its conscience to set them aside 
entirely, on any sufficient show of imbecility, or fraud, or un- 
due influence, or delusion, or some constructive or inferential 
unsoundness of mind and memory. The adjudged cases 



2i8 James Watson Williams 

sufficiently show this tendency, although it may be rather 
lurking than avowed. 

It has been made a question how far a will executed in a 
conceded lucid interval, when the faculties have, for the time 
being, apparently resumed their original brightness, is tainted 
by a chronic or recurring state of unsoundness of the mental 
condition of a testator. The writ de lunatico was always care- 
ful to require an inquisition to be made as to the lucid inter- 
vals of an alleged lunatic; because lucid intervals restored 
him to all the rights of sanity and covered his lawful acts ; at 
the same time, they made him amenable to responsibility for 
those which were unlawful. But such writs were usually 
resorted to for protecting a man in regard to his property, and 
his civil rights and obligations, against his own mismanage- 
ment or incompetency, and not in regard to any criminal vio- 
lations of duty. The purpose was to place him under legal 
guardianship, that no advantage might be taken of his wretched 
weakness; not that he should be restrained of his liberty of 
person, or of action, during any intervals of his restored 
strength of mind. It was considered that a man's faculties 
might brighten as sharply out of the obscurity of insanity, as 
the moon suddenly casts a pure glance out of the broken 
nebulae of a ruffled sky. There is no doubt of the transitory 
reality and clearness of either; but as the moonbeam might 
disappear in a passing occultation of a cloud, so might the 
lucid interval, in a returning confusion and shadow of the 
mind. A will made in such an interval, of sufficient duration 
to test its reality, should, on general principles, be as valid, as 
one made in a temporary cloud of insanity should be invalid. 
Martin Luther had his clouds, so had Cowper his, and Mary 
Lamb hers; but the long intervals of brightness were of a 
transcendent character in all ; of unequal continuance, indeed, 
but of unequivocal reality. Still, it is a nice psychological 
question, and Lord Brougham made it a legal one, whether a 
mind once tainted does ever positively recover its normal 
strength and health; whether there must not always remain 
such a real or presumptive suspicion of unsoundness, as to 



Addresses 219 

make it imsafe for the law to pronounce an absolute lucidness, 
and act upon that assumption. The law, however, practically 
answers the point, by measuring a man's capacity, not abso- 
lutely, but relatively; it inquires as to its sufficiency for any 
particular questioned act, and resorts to all tests, general and 
special, that may shed light upon it; and is content if it be 
the act of a mind competent to do it, whatever its incorripe- 
tency to do other acts. A man may make a will, but may 
not be quite equal to making a bargain. He may intelligently 
do acts, after a long accustomed mode, and in a familiar routine 
of duty, which another man, of greater general intelligence 
and power of mind, might not do half so well, nor with equal 
judgment. Newton, with all his science, could not tell when 
a shower was pending, as well as the shepherd's boy, who saw 
the sure sign of it in the wagging of the black ram's tail ; and 
trusting to his science, rather than to the boy's observation, 
and the ram's instinct, was deservedly ducked, in the boy's 
estimation, for lacking common sense about common things. 
A jury of shepherds would probably have pronounced against 
his capacity to make a will; as a jury of farmers lately dis- 
agreed about the wits of an octogenary neighbor, because he 
allowed a buckwheat field to grow up to an incipient pine 
forest of great prospective value, contrary to the current 
practice of good husbandry in that neighborhood ; and sacri- 
ficed the present enjoyment of morning pancakes, to gratify 
the third and fourth generation with the rich results of a 
spontaneous growth of logs worth fifty or sixty dollars a 
thousand feet of board-measure. 

On the whole, we are inclined to the opinion, that any 
attempt to define, with a pretence to psychological precision, 
the tokens or circumstances which ought absolutely to govern 
the adjudication of the validity of last wills, in respect of 
mental capacity, will fail of its purpose. A few approximate 
general principles must suffice for common application. In 
criminal cases, involving questions of insanity, the firmest and 
strictest definition is the best, although dogmatic, because it 
is the most merciful; in civil and equitable cases, much must 



2 20 James Watson Williams 

be left, somewhat loosely, to judicial discretion, and the force 
of concurring precedents. That degree of unsoundness of 
mind which incapacitates a particular person under particular 
circumstances, does not necessarily incapacitate every other 
person under the same seeming circumstances. It is a ques- 
tion of fact which should be left, in all disputed cases, to a 
jury of the vicinage, who although they are liable to be swayed, 
as perhaps they ought, by the prevailing sense and judgment 
of the community which is cognizant of the matter, will usu- 
ally, under suitable judicial instruction, be also swayed to hit 
near the truth in their verdict. The will of a conceded lunatic 
may, in itself, betray no mark of the unsoundness of the mind 
that dictated it ; for lunatics are not necessarily lunatic at all 
points ; and the consideration of a grave purpose may concen- 
trate their wandering wits into rationality. Often a sane man 
may make a will, while in a temporary haze, which does not 
affect his general capacity, and which only dims his mind on 
some subject that has nothing whatever to do with what he 
is about. Such a haze might properly enough shelter him if 
he were charged with a crime about which it had confused 
him ; but his civil acts are not compromised by it, unless they 
are obviously done under its shadow. Respecting the ques- 
tion of undue influence, it is not always, or of consequence, 
connected with legal unsoundness of mind and memory. Nor 
does mere weakness of intellect incapacitate ; and yet weak 
intellects, far enough from proper insanity, are liable to be 
touched by superstition and by sinister influences; as con- 
ceded strong intellects often are by exalted notions and am- 
bitious imaginations. A perfectly sane man may, from a 
desire for posthumous distinction, or for ostentatious liberal- 
ity, or for simply preserving his name and memory, or possibly 
to soothe a gnawing conscience, dispose of a large estate in 
the founding and endowing of charities, to the distress or 
destitution of a family that naturally has superior claims ; and 
yet such a disposition would not be impeachable as an act 
performed under undue influence. There are many cases of 
notoriously unjust and improvident present dispositions of 



Addresses 221 

property made by living men, by way of gift and. lavishness, 
which the law does not pretend to supervise or regulate ; then 
why should we expect to supervise or regulate the like testa- 
mentary disposition of it? We may say of a man, as we often 
do, that he is wasting his means, like a madman or a fool, in 
gaming or riotous living, or even in famous charities, that im- 
poverish him; but we cannot restrain him, without a pre- 
sumptuous interference with his liberty of action: then why 
should we expect to follow him beyond the grave, and criticize 
his posthumous squanderings and charities? Many a man is 
impeached of fatuity or undue influence, after his death, upon 
the mere footing of his last will, whom, living, no one would 
venture to impeach for any action of his life. But when the 
soul that animates the unfortunate testament no longer ani- 
mates the body of the testator, it is also no more respected 
or considered than the poor remains it once vivified; but is 
straightway assailed, impeached, doubted, scandalized, and 
insulted, as having lacked, in the most solemn act of life, all 
the discretion, affection, good judgment, foresight, and other 
commendable qualities, that once adorned the conduct, and 
are probably now blazoned on the monument, of the weak and 
deluded man who turned up a dark and unknown side of his 
character when he made such a will ; disappointing so many 
expectants ; and compelling, perhaps, his own offspring to de- 
pend, as better than all inheritance, on their industry and 
resources, as he himself had depended on his. 

Last wills have been a prolific cause of imputed insanity. 
Many excellent people have gone with tainted memories among 
their posterity, on accoimt of the most deliberate and con- 
scientious act of their lives ; who, if they had had the supreme 
wisdom to die intestate, might have slept quietly in their 
graves without ungrateful reminiscences. "Unsound minds 
and memories ' ' have come to light on the reading of a testa- 
ment, that were never suspected to exist before; and rarely 
has a large estate been bequeathed or devised, without arous- 
ing a doubt that the imfortunate deceased possessor of it, 
must, at one time or another, especially when he was acting 



222 James Watson Williams 

in the presence of chosen witnesses, and making a solemn 
declaration of his final purposes, have been beside himself, or 
unduly influenced by some sinister relative or friend. It is a 
melancholy and humiliating reflection on which to pause and 
ponder. 



i 



CAP AX OR INCAPAXf 

AN issue of a singular character was lately tried in Fulton 
County, New York. Antiqims, so to call him for our 
purpose, is a man of eighty -two years and more, possessed in 
fee of a farm of three hundred and thirty acres, worth at least 
ten thousand dollars on a sworn valuation. He chooses to live 
in a secluded, ragged, and dirty way ; keeping his own domicile, 
— a sorry specimen of housewifery; sitting alone by his own 
hearth-stone; reading or thinking himself to sleep in his 
paternal arm-chair; and tumbling out occasionally, to the 
hazard of his person, when he becomes somewhat somnolent 
over a tough chapter of the Apocal3rpse, which is the main 
study and solace of his declining years. Thus living, and like 
a celebrated literary worthy, "having neither wife nor chil- 
dren, good or bad, to provide for," a grand-nephew of his not 
long since took it into his head to suspect that Antiquus was 
allowing his affairs to get into a bad way, to the future detri- 
ment of the inheritance; which, as he was interested, in case 
of intestacy, to the valuable fraction of one-seventieth part, 
he naturally thought might be better cared for under his own 
or other guardianship. So he applied for an inquisition to 
ascertain whether his venerable relation was capax or incapax, 
—in the words of the writ, "incapable of managing himself 
and his affairs." The County Judge — after an unsatisfactory 
inquisition in the common mode, wherein, out of twenty-four 
jurors summoned, one was lacking, and only twelve out of 
the twenty-three signed the return, eleven refusing — ordered a 
proper issue to be made, and due notice to be given for the 
trial of it, before a petty jury drawn from the general list of 
the whole coimty. As Antiquus had always managed his own 

223 



224 James Watson Williams 

affairs after his own mind and fashion, with a success and gain 
satisfactory to himself ; and as he thought he was well enough 
to do in the world; he naturally felt indignant that, with all 
his experience, he should be called in question, at his time of 
life, by a yoimg aspirant to part of his wealth, as to his ability 
to do so a little while longer; probably intending not to end 
his days short of the hereditary period of one hundred and four 
years, which the paternal example authorized him to expect. 
So, being advised of the proposed proceeding, and determined 
to shun all observation of himself or his affairs, he stuck a case- 
knife firmly over his door-latch, and thus fortified his secluded 
dwelling against all inquisitive approaches. 

As it was deemed important by his persecutors that suitable 
medical evidence should be had to justify their proceedings, 
an expert doctor was invited to make a personal examination 
of the recusant old man. With a little posse, this expert 
ventured to the rustic castle of Antiquus, (every man's cottage 
is his castle, by the gracious courtesy of the common law and 
Lord Chatham,) which he found duly barred and bolted; but 
no warder was in attendance to be summoned. After various 
ingenious and fruitless attempts at a parley, the earnest expert 
finally succeeded in effecting a forcible entrance, — a pious 
burglary of the second or third degree, strictly amenable to 
the statute, — by thrusting his arm through a window, and with 
a rake, or other offensive long-reaching weapon, detaching the 
protecting case-knife, on the strength of which, and of the law, 
Antiquus so vainly depended. He found Antiquus in a very 
rudimental condition ; stealing out, half -clad, from the shelter 
of an antique hereditary clock, which, having been his hiding 
place and protection in his freaks of childhood, he had naturally 
fled to as a friendly refuge in his declining years. A glance at 
him and his plight, at once satisfied his obtruding visitors of 
his lack of competency and common sense; for how could a 
man with sufficient means for the enjoyment of life like other 
folks, choose to live as he was living, an eremite for seclusion, 
rags, and dirt, and an anchorite for larder? It was clean 
against reason that any one should so live at any time since the 



Addresses 225 

middle ages, and be sound of wits ; therefore he was unsound, 
and, in the meaning of the propounded issue, incapable of 
managing himself and his affairs. 

Such was the foregone conclusion; but when the matter 
was laid before the jury on the trial of the issue, it was more 
serious and complicated. It appeared that the old man, with 
all his oddities and peculiar notions, had mainly managed his 
property in a thrifty enough way, although not sufficiently so 
to take a first prize at an agricultural fair ; and perhaps a shade 
worse than the ordinary way of an independent farmer who 
chooses to regulate his own rotation of crops, and make his 
own market, good or bad. It was evidently proved that, for 
a few years past, he had allowed his fences to go down, his out- 
houses to tumble, some of his premises to lie fallow, and some 
even to grow up into a diminutive forest of thrifty pines; 
shrewdly calculating that he could live a few years without 
buckwheat, and gain his advantage in a future plentiful crop 
of timber, the profits of which, at his father's allowance 
of years and his own rate of living, he might himself enjoy. 
He had perhaps heard of the broad acres which Chatham had 
set out with cedars, and of the larches which Sir Walter Scott 
and some Scotch dukes and lairds had planted for the benefit 
of posterity; and remembered the sage advice, "When you 
have nothing else to do, Jock, be aye sticking in a tree — it will 
grow while you're sleeping." So his pine trees would grow, 
while he was disabled, by rheumatism and years, from hand- 
ling his plow and reaping his crops, and was unravelling the 
mysteries of St. John. Probably he had heard or read of the 
awful extravagance of this generation in the wanton waste of 
timber, and how profitable it might be to let young trees sprout 
up and grow to repair it. Such ideas sometimes stimulate 
men of foresight to do what a short-sighted neighborhood, and 
anxious grand-nephews, and heirs expectant, consider as very 
odd things. The most that could be positively said against 
Antiquus was that he was rheumatic, tattered, dirty, and old; 
that he suffered pines and firs to usurp his buckwheat fields; 
that he was self-denying in the matter of meats and drinks, in 



2 26 James Watson Williams 

consequence of a great constitutional dread of high Hving ; that 
he did not belong to any church, having a private religion of 
his own ; had been driven, by some pestilent and unfortunate 
litigious experience, to study his Bible, without note or com- 
ment; and had, like a great many learned, sincere, and con- 
scientious men, queer notions about the Book of Revelation 
and what St. Jude said ; considering that they prophesied con- 
fused times which men should be looking out for, and provid- 
ing against; — especially that they prognosticated the great 
War of the Rebellion in this country, which he doubtless thought 
was enough of Armageddon for his day and generation. 

But the singularity of Antiquus was fully matched by the 
odd evidence given by his grand-nephew, a licensed doctor of 
medicine, on the subject of incompetency and unsoundness, of 
which we shall give a few specimens from original memoranda 
of the trial. 

Before we do this, however, it is well to state, that it ap- 
pears from the testimony, that Antiquus had for some years 
lodged with two antique brothers, in one room of the family 
homestead, all without wives or families; that both of the 
venerable brothers had died at a good old age, refusing utterly 
all medical aid; preferring to take death in the natural way, 
without any obstinate and futile resistance ; and that Antiquus, 
during a long survivorship, had kept up the unfinished domi- 
cile, all alone, after the old slovenly fashion. He boiled dry 
unhuUed corn for his victuals; kept rusty pork in his barrel 
for giving it a savor; went barefoot and coatless, just like 
Socrates ; slept between two foul feather-beds ; and rarely 
graced society with his presence. When he received calls from 
his friends, he did not dress up and adorn for the occasion, and 
showed no signs of satisfaction with the compliment; but 
rather was gruff and bearish, as if they were not quite welcome. 
When disposed to be pleasant, his chief conversation seems to 
have been scriptural, and, especially, apocalyptic and pro- 
phetic, after the manner of eremites and secluded or banished 
evangelists. His one room of a wide forlorn house was devoted 
to all his domestic purposes ; being his parlor, his store-room, 



Addresses 227 

his kitchen, his bed-room, and his sanctum. Here he spent his 
lonely days and nights, dreaming away the one, and sleeping 
away the other. In short, in his matiire years of fourscore, he 
realized that delightful state which so enchanted Pope at the 
green age of twelve: 

"Happy the man whose wish and care 
A few paternal acres bound, 
Content to breathe his native air 
In his own ground." 

He sold timber trees for an income, like a noble lord ; but he 
did not mortgage the soil that bore them, like a noble lord. He 
was free from debt, and had money in bank, and in his purse. 
He and his brothers had made one unfortunate investment of 
their moneys in a promissory note for ten years, without in- 
terest, for which was finally substituted another note of 
another man more promissory still, which was eventually dis- 
charged by a distressing compromise at the rate of five or ten 
cents on the dollar. This, of course, satisfied him, by logical 
deduction, that all men were rascals ; and when appealed to to 
confide his affairs to his grand-nephew, or somebody, he ex- 
pressed his preference for the particular man who had cheated 
him; saying shrewdly to his grand-nephew, with significant 
directness and a profoimd knowledge of human nature, that 
he had rather trust a rogue than a fool ; but on the whole he 
declined to trust anybody, and resolutely insisted upon his 
grand natural right of conducting his affairs himself. 

Medicus, the grand-nephew, on his examination as a wit- 
ness to sustain the inquisition, was pressed somewhat by the 
inquisitiveness of counsel, and the necessity of enlightening the 
court and jury, to display his theories of unsoundness and im- 
becility of mind as applicable to the case in hand; and he 
made them most exactly pertinent; forming a satisfactory 
general theory by severe induction from one special case which 
was the whole of his experience, — a fractional part of the 
Baconian method very much corresponding to the fractional 
part of his possible future interest in the estate of Antiquus. 



2 28 James Watson Williams 

About sixteen years before the trial of the inquisition, 
Medicus had visited his grand-uncle, with whom then lived his 
aged brother John, another brother William having died a few 
days before, in advanced years. After observing their mode of 
life and management of affairs, he testifies : 

" I concluded, that there was unsoundness of mind and a weak 
intellect in Stephen (Antiquus). 1 took into consideration, viz.: 
(i.) their allowing William (the brother) to lie sick and die; (2.) 
John had gangrened legs, and they refused to have a physician; 
(3.) the Irishman [a drunken fellow] was living on the place, and 
they mentioned the fact of his inefficiency and depredations. I 
regarded that as weakness of mind [not dismissing him]; (4.) John 
had a strange way of not talking — don't know that he spoke much 
during the week; (5.) the barns falling down — Stephen told me 
that one had disappeared; (6.) a field of 40 acres was overgrown 
with young pines; (7.) fences gone; (8.) the hay in the barn was 
stock for the cattle of the whole neighborhood; (9.) one neighbor 
brought in food, and Stephen said he was a little afraid of high- 
living — he liked plain living. I think that is an evidence of aberra- 
tion of intellect. The fact that John had gangrene, and Stephen 
made no provision for it, is evidence of unsoundness, and when 
men show want of humanity and sympathy, it is an unsoundness 
of mind. I offered medical aid and they would not take it — John 
was over 80 at that time. The fact that Stephen would have the 
Irishman live there, shows an unsoundness of mind. I regard it 
more than negligence on his part. The power of mind was de- 
ficient in some extent. The barn falling down I regard as a weak 
state of intellect. The field of 40 acres of young pines is an evi- 
dence of unsoundness of mind — letting the cattle run on the hay is 
evidence of weak intellect. The lack of executive talent is evidence 
of unsoundness of mind." 

On a subsequent visit in 1868, about the time the pro- 
ceedings in the case were instituted, Medicus testifies : 

"Stephen said he was very feeble — had not been out all winter. 
He said he had been studying prophecy a good deal, and that the 
Rebellion was prophesied fully in the Revelation — the seven plagues 
were represented. He found that the world was about coming to 



Addresses 229 

an end. I asked him if he did not want something done in 
reference to his property. There was nothing more said — he would 
not Hsten to any thing in reference to it. This conversation on the 
prophecy I regarded as a shght aberration of mind. His saying 
[on another occasion] that he was willing to submit the care of this 
proceeding to Stewart [who had given the long-winded note] was 
in my judgment an evidence of insanity and incompetence. If he 
had proposed to take the matter from Stewart and give it tome, 
it would not in itself have been an evidence of sanity or insanity. 
Stephen has a good memory of old and recent events. I don't 
think it a remarkably good memory — it is ordinarily good. He 
talks intelligently on most subjects — on all subjects but revelation. 
I don't claim that he has ever made an incoherent or wild state- 
ment about any thing." By counsel : "What is dementia? " " It 
is a giving out of the mental faculties. There is a partial and com- 
plete dementia — there is senile dementia. This is a case of de- 
mentia. " " What are the evidences of dementia ? " " ( i . ) Neglect 
of one's own person — great filthiness. If a man has lived all his life 
in filthiness — is unusually filthy — he is of weak mind. (2.) Want 
of appreciation of value and care of his property. If he does now, 
as he has always done in this respect, I should say he has always 
been demented. If a man is physically debilitated, and allows for 
years his property to become unproductive, he is demented. If a 
man allows his property to grow up with timber he is demented — 
he has no will-power. Stephen has seen his property go to waste 
and has taken no steps to prevent it — therefore he is imbecile. 
Slovenliness may account for this. (3.) His employing men who 
have attempted to defraud him. There are all the evidences of 
dementia in his case. Complete dementia is always attended with 
loss of memory. This is the most common evidence, and a common 
evidence of partial dementia. Making wild and incoherent re- 
marks is another; so passion, and tendency to rave and become 
excited. Another evidence is inability to understand what is going 
on in the neighborhood. Stephen shows none of these symptoms. 
He seemed to understand about the war, but to connect it with 
prophecy. I know of nothing of which he talks incoherently, un- 
intelligently, or incomprehensibly. I never importuned Stephen to 
let me take charge of his property. I form my conclusion as to 
his insanity from no one circumstance — from all combined. His 
spirit of prophecy is to me an evidence of imbecility — this seems 



2^.0 



James Watson Williams 



to me an absorbing subject. I lay no particular stress upon his 
propensity to prophecy. There is a great diversity in the indica- 
tions of unsoundness. There are many degrees of unsoundness. 
When I see property of several hundred acres with no care taken 
of it — the buildings all going to ruin — cattle driven off and timber 
taken off year after year, — I regard it as undoubted evidence of 
mental weakness. When a man lives in bad condition, it is addi- 
tional evidence." 

After recapitulating the evidences of dementia in the case, 
Medicus testifies : — 

"The chief evidence in enabling me to make up my mind is 
his want of volition in not removing his drunken tenant. I have no 
other reason. I know of no other thing or act. I have not made 
lunacy a specialty. I claim no extraordinary capacity or knowledge 
in that regard. Stephen lives now, as he and his brothers lived 
twenty years ago." 

It is a little remarkable that all the testimony of experts 
should come from the same mint — the New York State L-unatic 
Asylum, — which seems to have different dies ; a circumstance 
which places this Journal, aiming at entire impartiality, in a 
somewhat perplexing position : as a relief from which we trans- 
late from the original hieroglyphics the evidence of both, and 
leave it to our readers, as the Court left it to the jury, with 
perhaps an equal chance of disagreement. 

After the testimony of several neighbors was given, Dr. 
Louis A. Tourtellot was sworn, who said, substantially : — 

" I am a physician of about fourteen years standing, and have 
made the subject of insanity and diseases of the mind a specialty. 
Have been connected with the State Asylum, at Utica, eight or 
nine years._ Have had considerable experience in the treatment of 
insane persons and those of diseased mind. Have had experience 
outside, and am familiar with the subject. I came here by request 
to make an examination of this case. The first examination was 
made with Drs. Diefendorf and Robb, of Amsterdam. Morgan took 
me out from here Monday afternoon, at three o'clock; arrived at 
the place about five o'clock, went into the house, took the door at the 



Addresses 231 

left, and found a couple of children and women; the door of the 
room was locked or secured; I rapped loudly at the door, — got no 
answer — repeated the rap, — no answer; remained an hour perhaps, 
and about as we were thinking to go away, I went up to the window 
and tried to look through it — it was filthy. I looked in and saw a 
bed, and I thought I saw a man rolled up — did not see his head nor 
his heels. I raised the window, and looked in, and did not see him. 
The other doctor looked in and did not see him. I took a hoe or 
rake, thrust it to the door, and removed a case-knife from the door, 
went in, and saw the old man come out from the clock. He shook 
hands with Morgan and me, and we sat down in a chair on the 
hearth, and had a conversation of about an hour. I can't give a 
sufficient idea of the room. The air was close and offensive to 
the last degree. Every thing about the room was filthy; it was 
occupied with chests, farm implements, household furniture, and 
fermenting grain. The hearth was heaped up with ashes; the bed- 
clothes so filthy you would not know whether they were sheets or 
blankets. It was not suitable to health or life to live in it. He 
had on a shirt and pair of trousers, both extremely filthy and 
stinking — no shoes or stockings on. You could scratch off the dirt 
in scales. Don't remember about his face and neck. He looks 
now like another man. I and two other physicians sat down, and I 
asked him some questions. I asked what was the reason he had 
not reported at the door. He said he did not want to be a witness. 
I examined him with an eye to see how much intellect he had. I 
asked him how long he had lived, and who were his relations. I 
have not his precise answers, but it struck me he was quite precise 
on events long ago, and those that interested him. I asked him 
about political matters. He said he did not care much about them. 
I asked him who the candidates were ; he said Grant and Seymour. 
Asked him about his religion — he had no preferences : as to his in- 
terest in his relations — he did not feel much interest in them — did 
not believe in them — the world was evil — did not trust them. He 
believed in the foresight of things — that his mother's spirit had 
manifested itself to him. In regard to Scripture, he was not par- 
ticularly interested in Scripture — one church was as good as an- 
other. He was very suspicious of all his friends — thought they 
wanted him for a witness, and hid behind the clock. I asked him 
why he did not get a woman to take care of his room: — he said 
he could not get a woman, — it would not be profitable, and he 



2^2 



James Watson Williams 



distrusted them : I can't give his words. I asked him what experi- 
ence he had as a witness. He said he had had a suit, and had 
eight witnesses out of thirteen ; and if he had had fourteen, he would 
have won the suit. . . . He did not comprehend quickly. 
In some question I asked him why he lived so. He said he could 
not help it. There seemed to be that incapacity of will common 
in old men. While there, a neighbor came in and wanted to know 
if he had any hay to cut. He said he might look around, and if he 
found any he might have it. Then how it was to be cut — on shares ? 
Yes. It was agreed to be so; his share to be cocked up on the 
ground. There was a lack of active will. I have seen him here, and 
conversed with him — conversed on the Revelation. He said he 
believed in Revelation, and went off on that — I could not make 
his talk hang together, and I stopped him, and he answered a little 
more coherently. I asked how he came to study Revelation. He 
said he had study in law, and took Revelation to see what the 
world was coming to. It seemed plain to him, and is plain to him 
yet. ... I have heard the testimony in this case. I observed 
his general manner all this time, as is usual in examinations. 
From my various examinations, and what I have seen, and the 
testimony, I think he is not of sound mind. I should think from 
the evidence, which is somewhat incomplete, that he is a partial 
imbecile; and he is growing old, age has weakened his mind, so that 
there might be a senile insanity added to imbecility. By imbe- 
cility I mean a degree of weakness coming on birth which comes 
short of idiocy. There are different degrees of this. No one 
imbecility is like another. Some manifest it through the feelings, 
some through the instincts, and some through the actions. I dis- 
covered here the want of active will. I mean by want of active 
will, an incompetency to originate — to begin to take new steps. 
. . . The want of active will would be likely to show itself in an 
aversion to business, to changes, and in an incapacity for business. 
From my examinations and what I have heard, I think he is in- 
competent to manage himself and his estate. I think it not safe to 
himself and his estate to allow him to do so. Acts of a party are 
an evidence of his state of mind. There may be unsoundness of 
mind without there being insanity. Unsoundness of mind in its 
general sense would correspond to a certain degree of weakness of 
mind. There may be a state of unsound mind, where some of the 
faculties seem strong; they will be affected through it, but will 



Addresses 233 

show it more in others. Some m^ay be very bright in some points 
and not in others. Sometimes experts in insanity may find it diffi- 
cult to detect insanity when it does exist in reahty, and the party 
has not manifested it markedly. I think it is not safe to leave that 
form to develop itself suddenly. There may be some cases under 
the general head of insanity where some of the faculties may be 
bright, and there is a lack of will-power. Where there is a lack of 
will-power, a man is liable to come under the control of designing 
persons. They are subject to be easily imposed upon. If one 
man succeeds in getting control over another he can do any thing. 
Often a stranger succeeds more than relatives and friends — rthere 
is a lack of feeling as well as a lack of will-power. I discovered 
that in this case. ... I derive my opinion from a combination 
of all the facts and circumstances, instead of from a single one. It 
is necessary to have the history, the habits, and the way of life, 
particularly of one under inquiry for weakness of mind. A case 
like the present ought not to be decided without knowing all the 
circumstances. One might make sharp bargains, and yet be in- 
capable in the business of ordinary life, — the business he follows. 
Selling timber at a good price would not make any difference. I 
don't think there is any phrase for the definition of imbecility — 
any other word that will make it any more plain. Eccentricity 
sometimes characterizes it. Imbecility is congenital, or arising in 
early youth. It applies, in common parlance, to all weakness. 
There is such a phase as senile dementia, that comes on in adult life, 
usually after an attack of insanity. A firm mind becoming weak, 
or giving way from no apparent cause, is dementia. It sometimes 
arises from a giving way without an attack of insanity. 
Senile dementia is the gradual breaking down of the intellect from 
old age. Senile insanity is the same thing, but a larger phase — 
includes more. When partial dementia or imbecility exists, old 
age tends to increase it. An imbecile is more likely to be insane in 
old age, or in the course of his life, than one not imbecile — there will 
be more dementia as he grows old. In deciding on the mental con- 
dition of a man, it is necessary to consider his physical condition. 
Timidity is a usual manifestation of imbecility. Seclusion is a 
common symptom, and a desire to be alone. A tendency to filthi- 
ness is a common characteristic; so is unthrift, carelessness, want 
of interest in pecuniary matters. There are cases of imbecility 
where persons will converse intelligently on some matters, and 



234 James Watson Williams 

exhibit considerable intellect. Some imbeciles have shown a great 
degree of aptitude of performing certain acts and learning certain 
things, as adding up columns of figures and performing on instru- 
ments. Some may show such aptness, and yet be very deficient 
in will-power and the common feelings of humanity. His conduct 
and way of managing his affairs afford evidence of his imbecility, 
and in case of a want of capacity, worth more than the oral ex- 
amination. The fact that a man that has property and allows it 
to go on and waste from year to year, I regard as one evidence of 
imbecility — it would form much by itself alone. If he also lives 
filthily, it adds considerably to the evidence." 

On a cross-examination Dr. Tourtellot said : — 

" He is mentally unsound in my opinion — that is all I have 
to say in respect of his feelings and want of will-power, also 
partially in respect of his intellect. I come to this conclusion 
from what I have seen and heard of him and the testimony 
here. There is something in his looks that indicates mental weak- 
ness from old age — or weakness of mind. I can't describe it. I 
think the whole look indicates that weakness. He is unsound of 
mind in regard to his feelings — his timidity, unwillingness to be 
seen, not opening the door, and hiding behind the clock. If he had 
been told not to see any body or let any body in, that would explain 
it. When we got in he did not appear to be timid. He said he did 
not wish to come here and be picked at — whereas a man of sound 
mind would be anxious to come forward and be examined. He said 
he supposed his connections wished him to die. I asked him why he 
did not get a woman — he said it would be unprofitable. I asked 
him what form of religion he preferred — he said he did not prefer 
any form — did not think much about religion or religious affairs — 
he said substantially, ' I don't know as I have any spiritual interest 
in religious matters.' It was the same of political matters. About 
his farming interests, he said to the young man who asked him if he 
had any hay to cut, 'I don't know — if there is any that is worth 
cutting you can cut it. ' The young man asked how he should cut it. 
He said he did not know. ' On shares ? ' Yes. — His half of the hay 
was to be cocked up in the field — I don't know which one proposed 
that, but it was so agreed. I thought it showed a listlessness and 
want of concern in his business. — His want of will-power is shown in 



Addresses 235 

fastening his door, and when we got in, in not ordering us out. If 
he had ordered me out I should not have seen any evidence of a 
want of will-power in that instance. Morgan [a constable or police 
officer] went in first — I heard nothing said — no ordering out. I 
can't give his response to my question why he lived in that way — • 
the substance of it was that he did not know, it was his inclination. 
It was an evasive and empty answer. He said he had not been out 
more than one rod since he was here last April. That was some 
evidence of want of will-power. I saw him walk across the floor 
from the clock to the fire-place, and he walked as quickly as I 
ordinarily walk. He said he had been very healthy in early life — 
spoke of particular years — he had enjoyed very good health — a 
number of years he had the rheumatism. He varied his language — ■ 
and went back and enlarged upon how very healthy he had been. 
His intellect is weak in certain portions. I asked him what he was 
afraid of, or what he did not wish to see. He said he did not wish 
to be brought here as a witness and picked at. . . . He said 
he believed in foresight — that he had heard the voice of his 
mother calling to him when out of doors — calling his name — and 
he took that as an indication that she was going to die — and 
she did die from an accident, — that she broke her leg. I asked 
him whether it was her voice, or a spirit voice. My under- 
standing was that it was a spirit voice. I understood from him 
that his mother was then living. This is only a slight indica- 
tion of aberration of mind. I asked him what he was to be a 
witness on. He said he was given to be under a lunatic circum- 
stance — it was in an undertone. I will swear that I believe that 
was what he said, — that I marked a degree of incoherence. I think 
he referred to this case here. He understood that he was tried for 
lunacy. I don't think he understands all the circumstances and 
facts of the case. . . . The house was filthy. He is in re- 
markably good health— had a remarkable constitution. I think it 
dangerous for him to live there — if he has lived ten years in that 
condition, I think it dangerous for him to live there. An extreme 
change would be dangerous to his life. If he was to go into a 
family where there are small children, it would shorten his days. 
He ought to have plain food, and to have pretty much his own way. 
I think he would be easily influenced by parties to part with his 
property. I have seen men that fell into the hands of sharpers 
and got skinned. Having so lived he would have an aversion to 



2^^ James Watson Williams 

change. There would be no serious danger of disposing of his 
property. He is not a lunatic. I made some notes of questions 
to ask me — they covered a half sheet of paper — they were questions 
I desired to be asked. I am sometimes at a loss in determining a 
case — all I pretend to do is to give my opinion." 

To a question as to proper treatment, the Doctor replied : — 

"I think he ought to be obliged to keep clean in person and 
clothing, his room ventilated, and he should have enough society 
to prevent a liability to injure himself; his food should be plain, 
and he should be examined by medical men as to his condition. 
His wishes should be consulted, and his previous habits humored. 
His talk on the Revelation, in connection with his condition in other 
respects, is an indication of mental aberration — but not alone. I 
think there was danger of the old man injuring himself by accident 
— by falling down. I don't know that any medical aid is necessary 
in regard to his mind." 

Dr. John P. Gray, Superintendent of the State Lunatic 
Asylum, testified: — 

" I have had an interview with this old man, and made an ex- 
amination at the hotel yesterday, for an hour and a quarter; and 
at Burdick's office last night. I did not detect any indication of 
unsoundness of mind or insanity in any form. Considering his age 
and education, I thought him rather unusually active in mind. He 
is a man of sound mind. He has not the strength of mind of his 
youth, and he has some eccentricities. He has capacity to control 
and govern himself and manage his property, as he has done for 
many years, with the exception that his physical difficulty will not 
permit him to give it the same personal attention. — He is not im- 
becile. Question by Counsel. Suppose he had 350 acres of land 
for many years — cultivated, or had cultivated but a small por- 
tion — a few acres less in the last two or three years than before — 
having no family, but living alone in a house on the property, — 
with a family in a part of the same house, — doing his own cooking, 
— taking care of himself, — what does that denote or what is it evi- 
dence of? [Objected to, but allowed.] I say it indicates a peculiar, 
eccentric man. It does not denote what is known as imbecilitv, or 



Addresses 237 

senile insanity, or senile imbecility. I did not see any thing eccen- 
tric in him. He was peculiar in his views of Scripture. This 
might be the result of ignorance. It is no evidence of unsoundness 
of mind in regard to his views on Scripture. I talked with him. 
Heard him express his views. — I drew his attention to the subject 
in the morning. I asked him what was relied upon to show that 
he was a lunatic. He replied, in substance, his talk about Revela- 
tion. I asked him what his views were about Revelation. He 
thought the 23d chapter of St. John's Revelation, the Book of 
Daniel, and Jude, referred to the end of the world — what bad things 
might happen about that time. It was after he had had two law- 
suits that he read on the subject these books, and it was made clear 
to him — thought he was right as to the meaning of what St. John 
and Daniel had said. Then he went into a long explanation that I 
could not call very lucid. Next he said, when he saw what deacons 
and others might say, he had to read Revelation to see whether the 
end of the world was coming, and repeated substantially the words 
of the morning. Question. What does that indicate ? I can only 
say that I did not infer insanity — it indicated that he had his own 
views — not imbecility nor insanity. Question. Did they indicate 
any thing more than peculiar views on that subject? They did not 
indicate any thing else. At the first interview, to test his memory, 
his intelligence, and his general interest in things, I asked him when 
his father came to this section of the country. He said his father 
purchased in 1804 — came here in 1805, and that the next year was 
the great eclipse. He detailed the difficulties his father had in 
securing the title, which I can't recall. In answer to my questions, 
he said he was 82 years of age — his mother died in 1832, his father 
in 1837, his sister in 1852, his brothers in 1857 and 1858. Touching 
recent events, I asked him if he had so conducted his farm and busi- 
ness, since the death of his brothers, as to clear his expenses, and 
make a living out of his property. He said, not the last two years, 
because the taxes were so high, and he could not work himself. In 
answer to a question I put, he said, he had managed the affairs since 
his father's death, as well as since the death of his brothers — had 
paid bills, and received money for things sold and bought ; had con- 
tinued to do so up to the present time. I asked him what his taxes 
had been for the past few years. He said, over $1,000 the past six 
years. I asked how much six years ago. — He said about $243 
and some cents. — Five years, $230 — four years, $200; — 1867, $173 



238 James Watson Williams 

and some cents, and the school tax, which was $2. As to his feeling 
towards his relatives, he said, I have no maHce towards any — some 
of them are rich, some drunken and good for nothing. He said he 
had never made a will— if he died, the property would all go by the 
law. I asked, if he had ever thought of disposing of it— selling; — 
he said he had not, — it was the most secure property he had. I 
asked, if he did not make his expenses, how he lived. He said he 
always kept money, from $600 to $1,000 about him. Where did he 
keep it? Some of it in bank, some he had himself. Why did 
he not put it all in bank? Because they did not pay any thing on 
deposits. Why then he kept any at all there? Because it was 
safer, as the country now was. I repeated a number of these ques- 
tions to him, but not in the same connection as before. To my 
questioning from the early part of his life to the present, I received 
in substance the same answers. I also asked him if he was a 
church member. He said, no — sometimes he went to the Methodist 
church, sometimes to others. He did not join them. I asked why. 
He said, he was not good enough. I asked him about the cultiva- 
tion of his land: his 'account of it did not differ materially from 
what has been stated here. Said he had not cultivated much 
plowing, and had grown grass, and kept some stock, — never culti- 
vated much grain — had cultivated less since his brother's death, 
because he could not get out so much; — thought he would make 
as much by letting it grow up to timber. One field he had in 
buckwheat, after the death of his brothers had grown up to pines, 
which he thought would be more valuable than his cultivation 
would have been. I asked him if he did not advise with his neigh- 
bors; — he said, he did not; — he talked once with Squire Creighton 
about this lot, and he agreed with him as to the value of the pines. 
" In my interview last evening, I again asked him if he had 
thought of disposing of his property. He said, no — he would not 
sell. I asked, if he thought of making a will. Before he answered, 
another question was asked — if he willed his property, would he 
give it to his relations? He said, when he died they would get it. 
He would not fight them after he was dead. They ought not to 
have it after the way they had acted, but he would not go to his 
grave with malice in his heart ; — that he could will only a portion of 
the property, and of the property his father had left only a portion. 
He then spoke of his father's will and its provisions. His father 
left it in seven parts, six to the boys, and one to the girl. The 



Addresses 239 

other girl had left home early, and had not done any thing to add 
to the property, and his father had excluded her. I asked if he 
was hard of hearing. He said no, — he could hear. If he heard 
any of the evidence given in court? He said he did. ... I 
asked him how he had fastened his house. He said he had put up 
some fanning mill sieves to the windows west and north, thinking 
it would be a good plan to have them dry and keep the cats and 
dogs out. He had put up a sheet at the east window which was 
open, fastening up with a light pitch-fork. He had fastened the 
door with a broken case-knife, by slipping it over the latch. He 
had fixed the door before the persons came there, to keep the chil- 
dren out, who had some kittens which they brought in and bothered 
him — Mrs. Strat's children in the other part of the house. . . . 
I asked him if he had read the Scriptures before these law suits and 
this war. He said, yes, but not so much. Why he had not then 
got the same views of Revelation? He said he had read them 
before without faith — if you had not faith in reading the Scriptures 
you could not learn them. ... I asked him what he lived upon. 
He said, mostly wheat bread, sometimes corn bread, and buck- 
wheat cakes and butter. I asked if he drank tea and coffee. He 
did not. He had meat in his house, but had not eaten meat for 
sometime past — more butter. He said Mrs. Strat did his washing 
— some other person did it before she came there; he had 15 or 16 
shirts. Strat made his clothes. I asked how often he washed 
himself. He said, every day. Mrs. Strat brought in hot-water, 
and he washed with it every night — he could not sleep without it, — 
had pain. I asked how he came to have such dirty, black feet. 
He had been washing them with coal and ashes. I asked him 
why he went behind the clock. He said it was to get out of the 
way so they could not see him. Some one asked him, in my pres- 
ence, what he said to the persons that came in the door. I think 
he said 'What the devil do you want here?' I asked him why he 
did not fight them and put them out. He said, he did not think 
they would hurt him. He said, he knew that this business was 
coming off, and he would have to come out to Court on Tuesday. 
He did not want to be talked to. He stated how they got into the 
house; they rapped and banged on the doors first — they used a 
knife to pry up the window a little distance, and then pushed it up 
and took the pitch-fork and pushed out the knife from over the 
latch. I asked him how he slept? He said he had two feather 



240 James Watson Williams 

beds on a bed, and in summer he slept with one blanket and quilt 
off, and in winter with more clothes and a feather bed over him — 
said he had more feather beds in the room than he wanted. I 
asked why he kept this rye in the room. He said he brought 
it in to keep it dry — ten bushels, — ^he thought all along they might 
want it to sow; a little of it had grown. I recall that, in my first 
interview, I asked him how he conducted his farm, having no wife. 
He said, he gave it out on shares. I asked the name of the con- 
stable of the town. He said, Noonan. He had not much interest 
in political affairs, — had not voted lately. I asked him why he 
did not vote now. He said the majority on the other side was so 
large there was no use of it. I asked who was the 'Squire' 
of the town — he replied, Mr. Robb. — I did not discover any ill- 
will or unnatural feelings towards his friends or relatives. He is 
not in my opinion unsound in respect to his feelings. I would not 
use the term will-power. The will is the executive faculty of 
the mind. I don't mean to swear to metaphysics or questions of 
metaphysics, or to a metaphysical proposition, as I am not willing 
to give oral evidence on any abstruse metaphysical questions. In 
respect to his power of controlling himself I should say his mind 
was sound, though not perhaps so vigorous as at some other periods 
of his life. As to the management of his estate, I should be in- 
clined to think he would manage it his own way. In respect to 
his intellect, it was sound — I did not think he was insane. I do not 
think he is liable to be imposed on and his property taken from 
him by reason of any insanity or unsoundness of mind. On cross- 
examination, Dr. Gray said — -there is a technical language and a 
popular language on the subject of insanity. Writers and experts 
differ in their technical terms to a considerable extent. It is a 
difficult problem in science. I have tried to employ popular 
language. I have not given any attention to the style. Will- 
power is not the best term to employ. It is a matter of taste, 
and on matters of taste distinguished experts differ. I understood 
the term — but did not wish to be led into the use of it on the ex- 
amination. The will is the executive faculty of the mind that 
guides and puts the mind in operation. Question. Suppose that 
all the other faculties of the mind are sound and in good order, 
and the executive faculty defective, would the mind be in a sound 
and healthy state? Answer. Every individual having to be 
judged by his own stand-point, I should not be willing to answer 



Addresses 241 

that question in a general way. As persons are weak or strong of 
will not always in relation to the soundness or unsoundness of the 
intellectual faculties, I can only answer in that way unless the 
word unsound is put in for defective, as that has a specific meaning. 
Question. What do you understand by the word defective as ap- 
plied to the mind? Answer. Not a complete, well-rounded, and 
balanced mind, — not a diseased mind. The term miiid compre- 
hends all the faculties. Question. If there be some one of the 
faculties comprehended under the term fnind in which it does not 
act naturally or normally, would the mind in that instance be de- 
fective? Answer. The mind in that case would be unsound, — 
in a popular sense, defective. The will is the executive director; 
if it is in a condition that it does not act normally, it would be in 
a popular sense defective, — in a technical sense, unsound. There 
may be some writers who use the term defect. I don't recall 
any. There is a great range of varieties and degree of unsound- 
ness, — greater in degree. I never found an author that can fix a 
standard of soundness and unsoundness. Every person must be his 
own standpoint. Experts differ on the same state of facts ; what 
one calls soundness, another calls unsoundness. In making up a 
case, we must know the habits and idiosyncrasies of the individual. 
It is difficult sometimes, on examination, to determine unsound- 
ness. It sometimes requires repeated examinations. In unsound- 
ness of mind, it often happens that there is more intelligence, 
activity, and vigor in some directions and on some subjects than 
others. Seclusion is one of the conditions marking unsoundness, 
which we look for and find. I use unsoundness of mind in the 
sense of insanity. I use them as synonymous terms. I know 
what I understand unsoundness of mind to be; I understand 
what I think it means in a technical sense, and what I think it 
means in a popular sense. There is no kind of unsoundness of 
mind which is not embraced under the general term of insanity, 
I comprehend under that term imbecility and epilepsy. Insanity 
embraces all kinds: some authors use unsoundness. Question. 
Do you call a will so defective that it cannot direct the other 
faculties, a case of insanity? Answer. Yes, if that defect is the 
result of a disease, and not constitutional or congenital. By dis- 
ease, I mean a disease of the brain, by which the manifestations 
of the mind are disturbed, shown in a change in the way of thinking, 
feeling, and acting of the individual. Question. If a person has a 



242 James Watson Williams 

will so defective that it cannot control the other faculties, is that a 
disease of the mind? Answer. It would probably be classed 
under the head of imbecility. Imbecility is not properly a case of 
diseased mind, but embraced under the general term insanity. 
Congenital imbecility increases as a person grows old — congenital 
defect would increase with increasing age. There is a disease 
known as senility in all books on insanity. It comes after the 
decay of the faculties from age. There are other species of de- 
mentia not called senility. Acute dementia is sudden. Dementia 
follows each of the other forms of insanity. It also supervenes 
upon paralysis and epilepsy. In a case of senile dementia the 
power of the will would be decreased — enfeebled. In a case of 
congenital imbecility it reaches that state when the man is fatuous. 
Senile dementia and congenital imbecility are increased by the in- 
firmities of age so that the manifestations would be substantially 
the same as to executive power. I adopt the system of the unity 
of the mind. — Extreme filthiness is a condition found in imbecility, 
and universally in dementia, and is always taken into account. 
Timidity is also one, but not so common. If a man's will is such 
that it cannot govern the other faculties, I would not think him 
in a fit state to govern himself or manage his property. One in 
a state of partial imbecility is more likely to get under the control 
of designing persons. ... A man is not at all times, even in 
health, under full control of himself, — would do one day what he 
would not do another. If he habitually did so, I would take 
that into consideration, with other things, if his capacity was ques- 
tioned. If a man possessing farms should voluntarily let them riin 
to waste for want of proper care, and grow up to brush, — so go to 
waste that the property depreciates one-half, I should regard that 
as an indication of want of power. I would not give it much 
weight. It might be taken into account. In a given community 
men in a normal condition ordinarily act in the same way in reference 
to their own interests. I am aware of the legal presumption that 
every man acts with regard to his own interest. I never saw this 
old man except at these interviews. My conclusion is based upon 
my examinations; but what I have heard here has of course got 
woven into my mind. I give a good deal of my conversation with 
him in his own language, but mostly only in substance. I asked 
him questions from tim.e to time and he answered. Dr. Joslin was 
present a few moments, and both of the counsel were present, and 



Addresses 243 

some strangers that I did not know. I suggested the inquiries in 
relation to taxes. ... I made no suggestions as to the ex- 
amination of witnesses. I don't know whether the subjects of 
examination were suggested by any one. I selected the subjects 
of examination entirely. Some hold that eccentricity often de- 
velops into insanity ; the line is difficult to mark. It is a common 
thing in aberration to have religious delusions. I was not present 
at all this examination. I was out for half an hour, and do not 
know what was done while I was absent." — Being asked if what he 
had heard had changed his opinions, he replied that his opinion was 
the same as heretofore expressed. 

At the close of the testimony, Judge Stewart stated to the 
jury in substance : 

" ist. That the case was one of unusual importance, not alone to 
Tyler or to his relatives but to the entire community in so far as 
their verdict might establish a precedent in similar cases. 

"2d. That to deprive a citizen of his liberty — place him under 
the control of a committee, together with his property, the most 
satisfactory and conclusive evidence should be furnished that he 
was a person of unsound mind; and that they were not to take 
into account, in any manner, his physical condition, his mode of 
living, his management of his estate ; whether he had caused it to 
be productive, or allowed it to go to waste or depreciate in value; 
except in so far as the expert evidence in the case showed, or 
tended to show, that such mode of living, or management of his 
estate, might be taken into consideration as evidence of unsound- 
ness of mind. 

" 3d. The judge further stated to the jury, and repeated to them, 
with great emphasis, that it mattered not if Tyler's legs were both 
severed from his body — his arms were off — both eyes out — and he 
physically wholly disqualified to look after himself or his estate; 
yet, if his mind was sound, he was the lawful and rightful custodian 
of himself and his property. The judge further stated that he 
attached no importance to the testimony that Stephen as well as 
the other members of his family, had lived in great filth, or that 
he had failed to cultivate his lands as his neighbors had cultivated 
theirs, or that he had allowed his lands to grow young pines ; that, 
if of sound mind, he had a right to live as he pleased; to cultivate 



244 James Watson Williams 

and improve, or to neglect to cultivate and improve his lands as he 
pleased; and that those things, by themselves, were not evidence 
of unsoundness of mind; but left them all to the jury with the tes- 
timonies of Drs. Gray and Tourtellot; who, he stated, were the 
only witnesses in the case claiming to be experts, and competent 
to speak of diseases, or unsoundness of the mind." 

The case was submitted to the jury Saturday morning, and 
after deliberating until 6 p.m., they vi^ere discharged; being 
unable to agree, and standing, as nearly as can be ascertained, 
about equally divided. 

To treat with more gravity a case with which we have some- 
what played, although we have been careful not to sacrifice 
truth in our playfulness, it is a serious question, not thoroughly 
solved, what sort of interference is proper and allowable in the 
case of a decaying and diseased old man, situated just as Aw- 
tiquus seems to be; what treatment humanity dictates, and 
the law, at the same time, will justify or inforce. Old age is 
entitled to its peculiar indulgences, and many of its whims can- 
not be handled to our liking, without an interference with 
personal liberty. If a man, without family or descendants, 
chooses to retire from the world, and to consult his ease after 
his own fashion ; to desist from the further pursuit of gain, and 
rest content with what he has acquired, satisfied that, without 
particular and annoying care about it, it will carry him com- 
fortably through to the end of his days; unless decrepitude 
has made him helpless, and senility has clearly impaired his 
faculties, so that he is dependent on the care and watchfulness 
of others for ease, sustenance, and what they choose to con- 
sider as comfort and happiness ; it would seem that he has a 
lawful right to insist upon an immunity from interference, and 
claim deference to his own wishes and inclinations; to wrap 
himself in his chosen solitude, like a caterpillar in his cocoon, 
and await the change that must happen to all. 

We are apt to consider many people as in a very wretched 
plight, who from conscientious or superstitious motives, or 
because of some idiosyncrasy, have reconciled themselves to a 
state of living that defies all conventional usages ; to a meagre- 



Addresses 245 

ness of diet, a scantiness of vesture, and even to mitigable 
chronic diseases which they persist in enduring without allevia- 
tion ; to conditions that seem to us quite inconsistent with any 
notion of comfort, much less of enjoyment. They suffer from 
choice, or from a wonderful obstinate patience or submissive- 
ness, what most people shun with horror; and obtain what 
they call satisfaction, from a state of life that causes the 
rest of us to shudder. There are hermits and anchorites whom 
nobody thinks of disturbing. Simeon Stylites was allowed for 
thirty years to lodge and board on the top of his pillar, exposed 
to all the inclemencies of the seasons, day and night, without 
any writ de lunatico served upon him, or of mandamus requir- 
ing him to come down, and sit at table, and sleep in a bed, like 
other folks. Simeon doubtless felt as if he were at the height 
of spiritual enjoyment. There are, now and then, obstinate 
cases of this sort, of which that of Antiquus may be one, who 
refuse to be persuaded that they can be any more comfortable 
than they are ; rejecting all proffered sympathy and attention ; 
and declining all offers of companionship and personal aid as a 
positive interference and presumption. They decidedly prefer 
to be let alone, as their highest enjoyment ; to be suffered to 
slip down the descent of life without question, observation, 
or meddling. This is very unpleasant to us; but is it not 
pleasant to them ? and have we a right to exact that they shall 
be pleased with our way of pleasure, instead of their own? It 
is a question of personal feeling and personal liberty of action ; 
and so long as they support themselves, pay taxes, and submit 
to the laws, why should they be annoyed with juries of in- 
quisition ? Nobody ever thought of restraining Thoreau from 
dwelling all alone in a hut in the wilderness, and utterly seclud- 
ing himself as often and as long as he pleased. John Baptist 
lived a good many years in the desert, shabbily clad in skins, 
and with no greater variety for the table than could be made 
out of the various modes of dressing up locusts with wild 
honey. A great many miserly old wretches beg their daily 
scraps, while they nightly sleep on well-filled purses for their 
pillows ; but they incur more peril from the gospel than from 



246 James Watson Williams 

any inforced law. Avarice, seclusion and eccentricity, how- 
ever blamable in a moral and social aspect, do not come within 
the reach of inquisitions, and there is no human law that we 
know of that makes dirt and raggedness a crime, or necessarily 
an evidence of unsoundness of mind ; although they distin- 
guish some forms of disease and are the cause of some. A 
great many tribes of the human race go foul and unclad, and 
seem to like it ; and so does an occasional odd fish of civilized 
society, who is yet shrewd enough to save or make a tolerable 
fortime, and to execute an unimpeachable devise of it, partic- 
ularly if it be for charitable uses. Diogenes was no fool or non- 
compos; yet he chose to be independent of conventional usages, 
in very enlightened days, and to roll his domicile about from 
street to street ; to utter sharp sayings to Alexander the Great 
for standing in his sunlight; and, not finding sunlight, strong 
enough, to help it with a lantern, when he wanted to concen- 
trate sufficient luminous power, natural and artificial, to 
find an honest man; — a search, which, so far as is recorded, 
was not worth the candle. A jury, now-a-days, might not 
be very far out in considering it as the highest token of 
imbecility and delusion, that he should be searching, with the 
most brilliant illuminating power, for such an antiquated mon- 
ster; he might as well be looking after a live megalosaurian, 
which, according to the geologists, could not have existed for 
the last ten thousand and odd years ; so remote is the era of 
megalosaurians and honest men: extinct tribes both, to be 
traced only in paleontological memorials, lying in ancient strata 
under the earth, or in quaint inscriptions on antique mossy 
tombstones in country grave -yards above it. Socrates, the 
immortal, is another example of an ugly, scant-fed and bare- 
footed oddity; a little more conversational, social and peri- 
patetic than Antiquus; but with a grievous disadvantage in 
Xantippe, that Antiquus luckily escaped by his persistent celi- 
bacy. Dr. Johnson, surrounded by quarrelsome old ladies, 
who kept him continually in hot water ; and feeding his ugly 
cat Hodge with extravagant oysters ; and who had also hear4 
his mother's voice calling his name under impossible cir- 



Addresses 247 

cumstances; was another example that Antiquus probably re- 
garded rather as a warning against domestic and social life, and 
household pets, than as a recommendation of that condition ; 
so he shrewdly shunned all such indulgences, and preferred to 
cultivate a meditative solitude, and starve and doze in undis- 
turbed independence. 

If a man has a congenital im.becility, it seems singular that 
he should be able to manage his affairs, even slovenly, to four- 
score, and then first be summoned to answer for it, and submit 
to an inforced guardianship. Such imbecility is certainly not 
senile, but juvenile and life-long; no more incompetency now 
than it always was. Medicus, being a doctor of some years 
standing, and having known his grand-uncle and his family for 
sixteen years, — they living all that time, as he knew they did, 
in the same condition as to imbecility, negligence of affairs, 
indifference to doctors and other indications of a somewhat 
lunatic character, — should not, it seems, have waited until his 
venerable relative was fourscore and upwards, before he 
thought of placing him in the custody of the law. The humane 
feeling which distinguishes his profession should have prompted 
him, a good many years before he did it, to look after an infirm 
old man, and see that his decrepitude and incapacity were duly 
protected against his drunken tenants, the plunderers of his 
timber, the trespassing hay-devouring cattle, the decaying 
fences, the dilapidating barns, the diminishing buckwheat and 
the incroaching pines. This long forbearance from doing a 
very natural kind office, finally but unsuccessfully attempted, 
carries a faint suspicion of some fresh interest in the old man 
and his affairs, that has a smack of last wills and testaments 
in it. 

From some of the testimony adduced in this case, and from 
the disagreement of the jury in the face of the strong and 
pointed charge of Judge Stewart as to the law, we infer that 
it is a common impression that every man who. is lazy and 
negligent about his affairs; every man who has inherited or 
accumulated enough to enable him, if such be his easy temper, 
to " let things slide," as the common phrase is, while he himself 



248 James Watson Williams 

is sliding down the vale of years, and sliding all the more 
easily because he lets every thing else slide along with him, 
instead of torturing his mind with the irksomeness of ' ' pushing 
things" ; every man who, in his wane and decrease, lays him- 
self up, for the rest of his days, in lavender, or perchance other 
odor less approved by delicate nostrils, and who chooses to 
care for nobody because nobody cares for him; every man 
whose faculties slack somewhat, especially his famous "will- 
power," which he may have weakened or exhausted in pro- 
curing the very competency which he has provided for just 
such a contingency, which he enjoys after his own fashion, and 
which is abundant for his own wants, although it might pos- 
sibly be so husbanded as to make the one-seventieth part of 
each of his grand-nephews a little bigger when he dies ; every 
man who shuts himself up in a single room of a forlorn house, 
instead of littering and fouling all the rooms in it ; every man 
who thinks more of Daniel, St. Jude and the Apocalypse, than 
he does of politics, or of his pigs or his fences, his grass crops or 
the prizes of agricultural fairs, and who suffers pines to grow 
where buckwheat did ; and yet showing no symptom of insan- 
ity or imbecility more than these peculiarities or eccentricities 
indicate : every such man, although he may be in some sense 
a nuisance or a disagreeable anomaly of civilized life, is to be 
deemed legally incompetent to manage himself and his affairs, 
and should be incontinently committed to legal guardianship, 
with the privilege of enjoying himself according to rule and 
conventionality ; of having his hair cut and his beard trimmed ; 
of dining on what offends his gorge; of being clad in shaped 
and snug tailor's coats and trowsers, instead of his easy rags 
and patches ; of being put into pinching boots, instead of going 
barefoot ; of having no pocket pence ; and, after having lived 
all his days independently, of being condemned at last to be 
subject, for the rest of them, to the whims of other people in- 
stead of his- own, and to have for dole, or what he thinks very 
much like it, the bread that his own means provide and pay 
for. 

Legal incompetency is not to be inferred from eccentricities 



Addresses 249 

or habitual deviations from common and customary modes of 
life and business ; from habits of extravagance or wastefulness, 
or from the other extremes of self-denial, parsimony, or ava- 
rice ; all of which are no legal gauges of unfitness or incapacity, 
unless in such particulars there is shown to be an abrupt or 
remarkable change from old modes and peculiarities of life, — - 
which is generally a sure indication of some impairment of the 
faculties, — or unless the ordinary faculties are obviously so 
broken or decayed as to present a ruin in contrast with 
their past vigor and perfection. Antiquus, it seems to us, is 
proved to be somewhat of an oddity ; but never to have been, 
according to his sworn expression, " in a lunatic circumstance" ; 
and never so much of an imbecile as not to appreciate the dif- 
ference between a " rogue and a fool," which must be set down 
as a striking bit of shrewdness in a man of fourscore. That he 
refuses to marry in his old age, when he sadly needs nursing, is 
perhaps the strongest token of imbecility ; but he is doubtless, 
without knowing it, of Lord Bacon's mind, that " certainly the 
best works and of the greatest merit for the public have pro- 
ceeded from the unmarried or childless men ' ' ; which he is 
willing to exemplify by leaving his pine forests and his com- 
mentaries on the prophecies to preserve his name and memory 
to the next ages. 

To have found Antiquus incompetent, would have been to 
deny also his disposing power ; a power which Chancellor Kent 
once maintained, in a like case, by affirming the will of another 
Antiquus, who was between ninety and a himdred when he 
made it. " It is one of the painful circumstances of extreme 
old age," says the humane Chancellor, "that it ceases to excite 
interest and is apt to be left solitary and neglected. The con- 
trol which the law still gives to a man over the disposal of his 
property, is one of the most efficient means which he has in 
protracted life to command the attentions due to his infirmi- 
ties." No wonder then, that anxious descendants should 
find so much imbecility in an ancestor or aged relative whom 
they may succeed, and seek to impeach his testamentary 
power by an inquisition that shall at once leave him in their 



250 James Watson Williams 

custody, and incapacitate him from executing a valid testa- 
ment, which may cut them off from the inheritance. 

Lord Bacon somewhere intimates that old men get wives 
for nurses. If Antiquus would so far subdue his cynicism as 
to contract matrimony with some mature widow, childless, 
and free from obnoxious feline and canine attachments, and 
withal of sufficient surviving power to outlast him ; and would 
make for her an ample provision both of domicile and of pine 
lands, before juries and experts begin to agree whether he is ca- 
pax or incapax; he might still, under her affectionate nursing 
and tidy ways, reach his hereditary centennial, and thwart the 
rapacious tendencies of remote collaterals who expect to divide 
his possessions. He would also have the satisfaction, in such 
a connection, of seeing new revelations, surpassing any that 
his fourscore years have yet discovered to him, else his experi- 
ence would widely differ from that of his octogenary brethren 
who have tried that sort of consolation for old age. He might 
even enjoy the singular happiness of Masinissa, who lived 
beyond ninety, and in his declining years was constantly for- 
timate — ' ' decursu cetatis constanter felix; nonagesimum annum 
super avit, et filium genuit post octogesimum quintum ! " 



ENGLAND AND CHINA— TWO LECTURES. 
FIRST LECTURE. 

THE blot on the political history of modern Empires which 
most disfigures its page and excites the virtuous indigna- 
tion of mankind, is the Dismemberment of Poland, and the ap- 
propriation and subjection, by the surrounding Powers, of its 
disjointed territory and population. It is not to my present 
purpose to consider the apologies offered by the criminal par- 
ticipators in that transaction for a course of conduct which is 
absolutely without apology as it is without precedent. The 
fact itself is damning, and an attempt to palliate it aggravates 
its odiousness. It is impossible to reflect upon that national 
murder, committed in cold blood, without a kindling of the 
eye and a leaping of the heart; without being amazed that 
every sword in Christendom did not gleam vengefuUy aloft, to 
descend in fury upon those who conspired so atrocious a viola- 
tion of the faith of nations and the common rights of man. 

Who can muse upon Poland, her ancient chivalry, her 
indomitable courage, her determined struggles, and her melan- 
choly exit, like the lost Pleiad, from the constellation of Em- 
pires, without a fervent hope that he may one day behold her 
avenged upon her oppressors? The sentiment is universal, it 
is irresistible. It is not in the human heart to look honestly 
upon her fate and check the native impulse of indignation. It 
is not in the human heart to see a nation, with no crime to 
expiate, extinguished in blood, without being touched by the 
contemplation of her grievous wrongs, and denouncing those 
who have done this deed of violence as traitors to all national 
obligations, to all national honor. 

251 



252 James Watson Williams 

And yet the world submitted to this atrocity; and the 
subsequent vain struggles of its impotent victim to do itself 
that justice which Christian nations refused, are the only 
direct attempts at retribution which History recounts. The 
act remains unatoned for ; and is indelibly fixed on the page of 
human transactions, prominent, inexpiable. Poland still lies 
prostrate and dissevered, the plunder of the rapacious and the 
slave of the domineering ; worthy of a place among kingdoms, 
but crushed to fragments by superior might and grasping 
ambition. 

A conspiracy of nations to commit such flagrant wrong, 
may never again occur ; but the spirit of rapacity and the lust 
of dominion that prompted it are still of potential influence; 
and, in more instances than one, have marked the conduct of 
a people whom most of us regard with admiration, if not with 
reverence. 

To England we owe our parentage, although we may not 
feel very strongly some of the obligations which that relation 
usually involves. From her, we inherit bravery, skill, industry ; 
religion, language, arts, philosophy and literature. Happy 
would it be, if, inheriting her virtues and the useful results of 
a long experience before and since we cut her off as one un- 
mindful of the duties of her relationship ; happy would it be, 
could we truly say we inherited none of her faults and vices. 
But we must not be unmindful, while criticising her demeanor 
as a leading actress in the great theatre of the world, that we 
too are not wholly blameless of the great fault of Empires ; — 
that of feeling power, and forgetting right. 

Since the aspiring days of Rome, when she possessed the 
power, as well as the title, of the Mistress of the World, no 
nation has coveted more earnestly, or reached more nearly, 
that summit of national ambition, than England. Herself a 
conquest to the gallant arms and superior genius of the Nor- 
man, the same spirit of conquest that animated him to land 
upon the shores of Britain with his armed followers, was, with 
his new realm, transmitted to his descendants. It has lost 
none of its original vigor. Time and acquisition seem to have 



Addresses 253 

whetted, rather than dulled, the keenness of its appetite ; and 
the island which Julius Caesar added to the vast power of Rome 
as an insignificant appendage, has, in the lapse of eighteen 
centuries, become the Mistress of ampler territories than Rome 
herself, in all her glory, could boast of possessing. 

The love of dominion, is the love of gain sublimed into a 
national passion ; and in no people of modern times have the 
one and the other been more strongly developed than in the 
English. The love of gain on the part of the subject has led 
to the extension of dominion on the part of the government. 
The most striking exemplification of this exists in the history 
of the rise and continuance of British power in a remote and 
extensive region of the East, where it now bears sway over 
countries broader than the British Isles, and over a population 
more numerous, by tens of millions, than those Isles contain. 
The rivalries of trade laid the foundations of this anomalous 
power; individual enterprise engendered those rivalries; and 
the beginnings thus made, the government itself has taken 
advantage of, not the less efficiently, because indirectly, to 
secure the sovereignty of the finest provinces of India. 

That England has achieved occasional good for India, I 
am not disposed to question. That she may achieve perma- 
nent good for her, may be admitted. But that she has done 
her infinite wrong and mischief, beyond the bounds of belief, 
and the reach of justification, and the power of atonement, is 
written with a pencil of midday sunbeams in the annals of 
her domination there. The story of her actions in the East is 
a story of oppression, outrage, cupidity and faithlessness, that 
modem History, except in that glaring instance of Poland, 
cannot parallel for flagrancy. 

It is now nearly two hundred and fifty years since the in- 
corporation by Queen Elizabeth, of that celebrated Company 
of merchant adventurers, who first established a small factory 
in India for the protection and furtherance of what bade fair 
to become a lucrative commerce with that teeming country. 
A monopoly begun for trade ended in sovereignty. An insig- 
nificant trading post, by purchase, fraud, intrigue and force 



254 James Watson Williams 

soon acquired sufficient influence for the formation of alliances 
with adjacent provinces, leading, by an easy gradation, to 
their complete subjection. The acquisition of the rich and 
populous province of Bengal, under circumstances which even 
Mr. Burke, with all his sincere abhorrence of injustice, slurs 
with the remark that ' ' there is a sacred veil to be drawn over 
the beginnings of all governments," paved the way to other im- 
portant acquisitions ; and towards the close of the last century, 
the provinces of Bahar, Orissa, Benares, Oude, the Camatic. 
Tanjore and the Circars, with Bombay and Salsette, were also 
embraced in the dominions of that same Company of merchant 
adventurers. These together, according to a statement of Mr. 
Burke, formed a territory larger than any European dominion, 
Russia and Turkey excepted. The provinces of Bengal, Bahar, 
Orissa and Benares composed a territory larger than the 
whole kingdom of France; Oude not a great deal less than 
England ; the Camatic, with Tanjore and the Circars, consider- 
ably more than England. "Through all that vast extent of 
country," he exclaims, "there is not a man who eats a mouth- 
ful of rice but by permission of the East India Company." 

The trial of that noted Governor of Bengal who was, during 
the last century, arraigned before the people of England at the 
bar of Parliament, charged with a dismal catalogue of crimes 
against India and humanity which only great talent could 
devise, and great wickedness execute; the commission of 
which was abundantly proved, but their punishment averted 
by a mere technicality in political ethics ; — this celebrated trial 
developed in all its gloomy atrocity the infamous conduct by 
which such vast possessions and authority had been acquired. 
I do not propose to enter upon the shocking details of it; they 
fill a mighty volume, and such a volume of treachery and in- 
humanity, involving in one melancholy wreck all that in that 
noble land was venerable for religion, respectable for rank, 
honorable for years, or estimable for innocence, could not be 
truly written of any other dominion or tyranny I ever read of. 
Fox, Sheridan and Burke exhausted the copiousness of their 
manly and touching eloquence upon the theme ; and what they 



Addresses 255 

could not prevail upon a British Parliament to do, the honest 
sentiment of the world has done; convicted the East India 
Company of a systematic course of fraud, rapine, and cruelty 
inflicted upon an impoverished, unhappy and undone people. 

This passing reference to the incipiency and enormous 
growth of British power in India is made for the purpose of 
foreshadowing the probable policy of England, should circum- 
stances favor it, towards another nation of the East, on which 
the eyes of mankind are now intently fixed. For two hundred 
years she has been wistfully seeking to obtain a foothold in 
China ; an empire of the broadest extent, and the most numer- 
ously populated of any in the world. For two hundred years 
has China thwarted all the arts and intrigues, and courteously 
rejected all the embassies of England, until force is called in, 
under the cloak of retribution, to accomplish what diplomacy 
has so long failed to attain. In the solemn language of Burke, 
' ' this is a business that cannot be indifferent to the fame of 
England. She is on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks 
her demeanor." 

Before considering more particularly, as I propose to do on 
a future occasion, the present relations of England and China, 
and the question of the right of a nation to cut off commer- 
cial intercourse with the world; it seems desirable that we 
should first possess ourselves with a more accurate notion of 
the Chinese people than is commonly entertained, even by those 
who are generally well informed. I do not pretend to any 
more intimate acquaintance with their history and character 
than is easily to be acquired by most persons who feel an inter- 
est in the subject. They are a peculiar people. This is nearly 
all that is well known, by which I mean commonly and truly 
known, about them. But it is to be remembered that like 
Attila, the famous leader of the Huns, who depends for his 
renown upon the tales of his enemies, having no historian of his 
own countrymen to recount his exploits and portray his charac- 
ter ; so the Chinese are depicted to us by those principally who 
are interested, in some material points, to misapprehend and 
misrepresent them. The general opinion respecting them 



256 James Watson Williams 

appears to be that they are a numerous people, enveloped in 
self-conceit, ignorant, superstitious, treacherous and exclusive. 
A brief examination will show how far this opinion is well or 
ill-founded, and enable us the more satisfactorily, on the evi- 
dence of admitted facts, to compare them with other nations 
who boast of their superiority. 

China proper embraces a territory covering upwards of 
twenty degrees of latitude and as many of longitude ; a terri- 
tory greater than is comprised within the twenty-six States 
composing our Union. This is but a fractional part of the 
whole Chinese Dominions, which together form a territory five 
times greater than our twenty-six States. These vast posses- 
sions, with variations of climate as extreme as our own, 
intersected by noble rivers inferior only to the Amazon and 
Mississippi, and by a ship canal which is unequalled for extent 
and dimensions by any in the world, are peopled, at the most 
moderate estimate, by more than two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions ; and, on the authority of the Chinese tax lists, which are 
made with as much accuracy as our census, by more than three 
hundred and fifty millions ; a multitude, under one authority, 
almost surpassing the scope of belief, and even of imagination ; 
in comparison of which our own population of seventeen mil- 
lions, the twenty-six millions of Great Britain and Ireland, and 
the thirty-five millions of France, shrink into insignificance; 
and which to equal, you must sum up the whole population of 
Europe. The progenitors of these myriads of people emerged 
from barbarism at a period long remote ; and, before the Chris- 
tian Era, were as highly' cultivated as the people of Europe were 
so late as the fifteenth century ; a position from which during 
that long interval, if they have not advanced, they have not 
retrograded. It is true, that the improvements of other lands 
have not as yet penetrated that extended region; and the 
labor of human hands still continues diligently to perform those 
mechanical operations which in other parts of the world have 
been committed to the wonderful contrivances of human in- 
genuity. It is also true, that the beams of modern science 
have not as yet struggled through the cloud of obscurity with 



Addresses 257 

which a system of unnatural exclusiveness has so long over- 
hung that immense dominion ; and that much that we know to 
great perfection is not even rudimental there. But among no 
people have agriculture, the mechanical arts and literature, the 
great sources of physical comfort and mental enjoyment, been 
so long and uninterruptedly cultivated or so highly honored. 

Europe was groping for seven centuries in intellectual dark- 
ness, while China was in possession of the art of printing, and 
of a literature ancient and widely diffused ; embellished by the 
productions of a celebrated cotemporary of Herodotus and 
Pythagoras, the sage Confucius, and his numerous commenta- 
tors, and by numerous poetical compositions, the earliest of 
which may be traced back for thirty centuries. During the 
same period, education was so general that every town and vil- 
lage had its common schools, under a system of instruction 
that was ancient before the Christian Era. Learning has for 
ages been the chief passport to the political honors of the State. 
That which is deemed essential, (for even in China there is a 
foppery in literature,) is encouraged by all the stimulating 
motives that can prompt to its acquisition. District and pro- 
vincial examinations of those who pursue it, (and these are 
nearly all, of all ranks and estates,) are succeeded by others 
more thorough at the Imperial Capital; to attend which the 
indigent are supplied with the necessary allowances; and 
where the successful competitors receive their degrees, which 
are a test of merit and a title to elevation. From those thus 
honored are chosen the members of the Imperial College, and 
from these again the chief ministers and counsellors of the Em- 
pire. Thus in China, more than in any other country, by a 
custom which antiquity has ripened into a fundamental law, 
to be learned is to be respected and exalted. And thus it is, 
according to the testimony of an intelligent observer, that 
"among the countless millions that constitute the Empire, al- 
most every man can read and write sufficiently for the ordinary 
purposes of life, and a respectable share of these acquirements 
goes low down in the scale of society." "The govern- 
ment very justly regards education as omnipotent, and some 



258 James Watson Williams 

share of it nearly every Chinese obtains." "The chief source 
of rank and consideration is certainly cultivated talent." 
' ' Under the influence of such institutions " it is remarked by 
Sir George Staunton, who was one of the retinue of Lord Mac- 
artney, the first Ambassador of England, "it is by no means 
surprising that the proportion of the community devoted to let- 
ters should be much greater in China than it is in any other coun- 
try on the surface of the globe. It is so great as to constitute 
of itself a distinct class in the State. It is the first and most 
honorable of the four classes into which the body of the people 
is considered as divisible according to the Chinese political 
system ; namely, the Literary, the Agricultural, the Manufac- 
turing and the Mercantile." "Every thing that is subservient 
to or connected with literary objects is carried to a degree of 
refinement, and blended with all their ordinary concerns of 
pleasure and business, in a way that may seem extravagant and 
puerile ; their customary reverence for letters is such that they 
will not tread upon written or printed paper; but such an 
attachment to the forms and instruments by •which knowledge 
is conveyed, could hardly exist independently of a regard for 
their object." 

In connection with their literature, it may not be inap- 
propriate to remark upon a common misapprehension regard- 
ing their language. It is generally supposed to be quite 
unattainable, for any practical purpose, by foreigners. That it 
is in the highest degree artificial, and differs greatly from most 
other languages, cannot be doubted ; but it would be a marvel 
if a language which is readily comprehended by half the popu- 
lation of the globe should be beyond the acquisition of the rest. 
The population of the world is estimated at somewhat upwards 
of eight hundred millions, and at least four hundred millions 
of people understand the Chinese. It is a language of symbols, 
and not of sounds. The letters of our alphabet convey of 
themselves, no ideas; they are the representatives of sounds 
simply. It is in their combination that all their value consists. 
A Chinese letter, or what we call such, conveys an idea ; it is 
the symbol of one; and therefore, for scientific purposes, the 



Addresses 259 

language is deemed, by those who have studied it, to be the 
most perfect in the world. It is like the Arabic numerals, 
which we, in common with the nations of the old world, use in 
our arithmetical operations. These numerals, for the purpose 
of notation, are a universal language. We may not understand 
an Italian, or a Frenchman, or a Spaniard, or a Portuguese, 
when he bids us ' ' Good morning ' ' in his native tongue ; but 
when, with the Arabic numerals he performs an arithmetical 
operation, we understand him as readily as we do an Eng- 
lishman or an American. It is the same with the Chinese 
language considered as a written language. The citize|i of 
Canton may not comprehend the citizen of Peking in common 
conversation; neither does a Scotchman understand a York- 
shireman ; and yet the written language of China is as mutually 
intelligible to the citizens of Canton and Peking as is written 
English to the Scotchman and the Yorkshireman. The dialects 
of China are those of pronunciation, the written words being 
invariable, and equally intelligible from Japan to Cochin China, 
It is asserted by one conversant with the language, that 
to affirm that it comprises so many thousand different charac- 
ters, is very much the same thing as to say there are so many 
thousand different words in Johnson's Dictionary; and that 
it is as essential to know all that Dictionary by heart in order 
to read and converse in English, as it is to know all the Chinese 
characters in order to read and converse in Chinese. The 
whole penal code of China contains only two thousand different 
words; and it is as easy to turn to a particular word in the 
Chinese Dictionary, which was compiled more than a hundred 
years since, as it is to turn to a particular word in an English 
Dictionary. The priginal characters of the language do not 
exceed two hundred and fourteen, reducible to a smaller 
number by analysis, and expansible to an unlimited degree by 
combination. The written language, uncouth as its truly pic- 
turesque characters may seem to our eyes, accustomed to the 
regularity of the Roman and Italic types, is attainable by a 
foreigner with the sole aid of a grammar written by a French- 
man, and a Dictionary compiled by an Englishman. 



26o James Watson Williams 

In the mechanical arts, great ingenuity, a happy division 
of labor, and nice manual dexterity, enable the Chinese to 
excel all other people in the production and finish of many 
valuable articles for use and ornament. In their practised 
hands, implements of the rudest device and construction are 
taught to accomplish what the more perfect contrivances of 
Western nations cannot achieve. In the carving of wood and 
ivory, and in the cutting of agate and rock crystal, their skill is 
unequalled. It is to them that all other countries are indebted 
as the original manufacturers of silk and porcelain ; manufac- 
tures which the ingenious and dexterous artisans of France, 
with all the advantages of scientific skill, and after years of 
effort, have hardly succeeded in equaling. Sir George Staun- 
ton relates as an evidence of ready Chinese ingenuity, that two 
of them took down the two magnificent glass chandeliers sent 
with Lord Macartney's embassy as presents to the Emperor, 
in order to place them in a more advantageous position. They 
separated them piece by piece, and put them together again 
in a short time without difficulty or mistake, the whole consist- 
ing of many thousand minute pieces, though they had never 
seen any thing of the kind before. Another Chinese cut a 
narrow strip from the edge of a curved plate of glass, in order 
to supply the place of one belonging to the dome of the plane- 
tarium, which had been broken. The English mechanics be- 
longing to the embassy had in vain attempted to cut the glass 
according to this curved line, with the assistance of a diamond. 

In agriculture, which the denseness of the population, added 
to its own intrinsic importance, has made a chief employment 
of the people, they had acquired the art of making "every rood 
of ground maintain its man," while Europe, in the expressive 
language of Burke, was "yet in the woods." The excellence 
and economy of their contrivances for irrigating and enriching 
the soil are not surpassed in any country. Their superior hus- 
bandry is traced back with pride to the most remote antiq- 
uity, and, next to literature, holds the highest rank in point 
of esteem and honor. An annual high festival is held at the 
Temple of the Earth, which the Emperor and the principal 



Addresses 261 

officers of the Empire attend, to testify the reverence that is 
due to agriculture; on which occasion they in turn hold the 
plough, and the land thus furrowed is sown with grain, the 
produce of which is carefully gathered for sacrifices. A similar 
festival is held at the altar of the Inventor of the silk manu- 
facture, which is honored by the Empress and the chief ladies 
of the Court, to encourage the growth of the mulberry and the 
rearing of silk worms. It is thus that this sensible people give 
countenance and credit to those pursuits which are frequently 
deemed humble, but which are so essential to the support and 
comfort of man, and contribute so vastly to the virtue and 
prosperity of nations. 

It is in the fine arts that the Chinese seem to be farthest 
behind other civilized nations. In painting, their knowledge 
of perspective is scanty, and their taste so uncultivated that 
they consider the beauties of light and shade as positive blem- 
ishes. In outline drawing they are not unskillful; and their 
colors are remarkable for their brilliancy and permanence. 
Beautiful writing seems to be held by them somewhat in the 
same esteem which we bestow upon fine pictures. The choic- 
est gifts of friendship are exquisite specimens of penmanship, 
which are framed for ornament and admiration, and occupy 
the place on the walls and tables which we should devote to 
the gems of the burine and the pencil. Their sculpture is more 
defective than their painting. Music, although musical in- 
struments abound, has never advanced beyond simple melody ; 
and they seem to be unpractised in semitones and counter- 
point. Harmony, unless the occasional use of octaves may be 
called such, is quite unknown. 

Such details, meager though they be, but which might be 
amplified to fatigue your patience, are, I trust, sufficient for 
the purpose I have in view ; which is to show that the Chinese 
are a people eminently ingenious, nice, cultivated and success- 
ful in those arts which contribute to the support and sub- 
stantial comfort of Hfe; while in those which tend merely to 
its embellishment, they are generally defective. It is but the 
common case of a secluded country, whose necessities demand 



262 James Watson Williams 

a continual application of its industry to those piu"suits which 
tend to sustenance and not to luxury. It is not that there is 
an absolute want of capacity, or that bad taste is inherent; 
but that the condition of the people is not precisely such as 
to develop the one or correct the other. 

The government of China is a qualified despotism, retain- 
ing as much of the patriarchal element as it is possible to infuse 
into the regulation of such a vast multitude of subjects. The 
Emperor is revered as the Father of his People, and the several 
officers of the State are regarded by their subordinates with 
filial respect. Filial duty is the elemental principle to which 
all the other duties of the citizen are referred. It is the first 
of moral as well as of political obligations; extending its 
claims to observance through all the relations of domestic, 
social and civil life. As it is expressed in one of their Sacred 
Books, — " In our general conduct, not to be orderly, is to fail 
in filial duty ; in serving our Sovereign, not to be faithful, is to 
fail in filial duty; in acting as a magistrate, not to be careful, 
is to fail in filial duty; in the intercourse of friends, not to be 
sincere, is to fail in filial duty ; in arms and in war, not to be 
brave, is to fail in filial duty." " I instruct the Magistrates, " 
said a late Emperor, in an edict denouncing signal punishment 
against a breach of this obligation, "severely to warn the 
heads of families and the elders of villages and on the second 
and sixteenth of every month to read the Sacred Instructions, 
in order to show the importance of the relations of life, that 
persons may not rebel against their parents ; for I intend to 
render the Empire filial"; an announcement worthy of a 
Christian ruler, but which many Christian people would re- 
gard with far less practical reverence than do the pagans of 
the Celestial Empire. 

Its penal laws have been highly extolled for their clearness 
and excellence ; and the government, unlike other despotisms, 
takes special care that the plea of ignorance of them shall not 
be truly available; for they are caused to be printed in a 
cheap form that they may be diffused among all classes of the 
people. What is cheapness with regard to books may be 



Addresses 263 

inferred from the fact that three or four volumes of any or- 
dinary work, of the octavo size and shape, may be had for a 
sum equivalent to two English shillings, which is about one 
eighth of the amount we commonly pay for similar books. It 
is of these penal laws of China, that a writer in the Edinburgh 
Review declares, that he "scarcely knows of any European code 
that is at once so copious and so consistent, or that is so 
nearly free from intricacy, bigotry and fiction." But a 
higher evidence, than any well turned period, of the fitness 
and efficiency of the laws of this great people, is exhibited in 
the comparative unfrequency of grave crimes, the excellence 
of the internal police, and the order, good humor, cheerful- 
ness, peaceableness and industrious habits that confessedly 
prevail. These are not the offspring of a bad government. 

The extremes of abject poverty and splendid opulence are 
affirmed to be less frequent than in any other countries of the 
East, and perhaps of the whole globe. "Poverty is no re- 
proach among them." The greatest disparities in condition 
do not arise from property, so much as from official station; 
as for property, the absence of the rights of primogeniture, 
which are nevertheless of Eastern origin, causes its speedy 
distribution ; and as for station, it is not only not hereditary, 
but it is a crime to propose to make it so. Even the sceptre 
does not necessarily descend from father to son; for the 
Emperor has the power to name his successor, and to transfer 
the sovereignty from his own descendants to another family. 
Such a state of things is eminently favorable to produce an 
equality among the people, affected only by those meritorious 
considerations of talent, industry, and integrity which are 
the sole legitimate causes of inequality. 

In military affairs they are sadly deficient. The art of 
war is still in its infancy, the bow and arrow being the most 
usual weapon; and two centuries of almost uninterrupted 
peace have contributed to keep them behind other nations in 
the essential particulars of discipline and effective materials 
of war. They were the first inventors of gimpowder, but are 
more familiar with its use for purposes of holiday display, 



264 James Watson Williams 

than for the more serious service of protecting or destroying 
life and property. Until within a few years all the ordnance 
they had was the manufacture of the Portuguese, or the Jesuit 
missionaries ; and their light fire arms are rude and inefficient. 
The regular troops of the country are Tartars, and are esti- 
mated at about 80,000; but the whole number of men under 
pay is about 700,000, by far the greatest portion of whom are 
militia, fit only for the purposes of a police. Bravery is not 
a characteristic of the people, although some instances are 
on record which exhibit creditable displays of passive courage . 
In other particulars, the Chinese may, upon good testi- 
mony, assume a rank among the nations of the earth by no 
means so subordinate as is commonly assigned to them. 

"I have been a long time in this country," says an English 
gentleman, "and I have a few words to say in its favor. Here we 
find ourselves more efficiently protected by laws than in many 
other parts of the East or of the world. In China a foreigner can 
go to sleep with his windows open, without being in dread of either 
his life or property, which are well guarded by a most watchful 
and excellent police; but both are periled with little or no pro- 
tection in many other states; business is conducted with unex- 
ampled facility, and in general with singular good faith; though 
there are, of course, occasional exceptions that but more strikingly 
bear out my assertion. Neither would I omit the general courtesy 
of the Chinese in all their intercourse and transactions with foreign- 
ers. These, and some other considerations, are the reasons that 
so many of us so oft revisit this country and stay in it so long." 

An English historian of China, to whose interesting volumes 
I am indebted for much of the information I possess respecting 
this singular people, observes that 

"there is a business-like character about the Chinese, which assim- 
ilates them in a striking manner to the most intelligent nations 
of the West, and riiarks them out, in very prominent relief, from 
the rest of the Asiatics. However oddly it may sound, it does not 
seem too much to say that in every thing which enters into the 
composition of actively industrious and well organized communi- 



Addresses 265 

ties, there is vastly less difference between them and the English, 
French, and Americans, than between these and the inhabitants of 
Spain and Portugal." 

The rudest sketch of any people is unsatisfactory without 
an allusion to their religion. It is remarked as a singular cir- 
cumstance that the State religion of China, is the religion of 
the original Chinese, and not of the Manchoo Tartars, who 
have so long possessed the civil power of the country. But 
the principles of Confucius seem to have been proof against 
the Tartar tempest that swept away so much that was vener- 
able in China, as they subsequently were against the efforts 
of the Catholic missionaries. The system of this cotemporary 
of P3rthagoras, is less a religious, than a philosophical and 
political system. It acknowledges a Supreme Being, and 
abounds with maxims of moral and civil wisdom. The Chris- 
tian precept of doing to others as we desire they should 
do unto us, was announced by Confucius as a rule of human 
conduct five centuries before the appearance upon earth of 
the great Christian Teacher; and yet a distinguished citizen 
of our own country, noted no less for the depth and variety 
of his knowledge, than for the numerous dignities to which he 
has been exalted, has founded an argument against the Chinese 
policy of exclusiveness, and in defence of the conduct of Eng- 
land, upon the naked position that, China not being a Christian 
nation, "its inhabitants do not consider themselves bound by 
the Christian precept to love their neighbor as themselves," — 
"to do unto him as they would that he should do unto them, ' ' 
— a position that loses all its force when we reflect that although 
they do not reverence the precept as a Christian precept, they 
do reverence it as a Confucian precept, and sanction it as truly 
and really by their conduct as Christian nations do. The in- 
fluence of the Chinese philosopher may be inferred from the 
circumstance that his works have been nearly as fruitful of 
commentaries and discourses in his native land as the Holy 
Scriptures have among Christian sects, and are held by the 
Chinese in the same degree of reverence which we bestow upon 



266 James Watson Williams 

the Bible ; a reverence that proceeds from principle, as much 
amongst those Pagans as amongst us Christians, and probably 
no less from fashion and regard for public opinion amongst 
ourselves than amongst them. 

The religious ceremonies connected with the State religion 
are various kinds of sacrifices to the celestial bodies, the 
deities of the land and of grain, the chief phenomena of nature, 
and the Queen of Heaven. They seem to be refinements upon 
the grosser devotions of the East. The Chinese are too sen- 
sible a people to have fallen into the abominable rites that 
attend the worship of Juggernaut, and generally deform the 
religious sacrifices of other Asiatic nations. The sect of the 
Buddhists, who rank next to the followers of Confucius in re- 
spectability and numbers, professes the worship of Fo, which 
is an offshoot of the wretched superstition of India. It 
is the religion of the Tartars generally outside of the Great 
Wall, but was introduced into China at an early period by the 
Chinese themselves, although it is now rather tolerated than 
encouraged. It has little to recommend it to the sympathies 
of an active, intelligent and industrious people ; and its ten- 
dency to encourage idleness and beggary, and the mummeries 
of its priests and professors, which strongly resemble those of 
the Brahmins and Faquirs of India, have therefore naturally 
caused it to fall into disrepute; so that even the pagodas, 
those costly, shrines of its deity, are neglected and running 
to decay. Another sect, whose founder lived in the time of 
Confucius, is that called Taon, a kind of Rationalists, whose 
system is Epicurean. It is rather a philosophy than a religion, 
and in later times has degenerated into the practice of magical 
arts. Its followers seem never to have been numerous; and 
at this day are in as low repute as jugglers and mountebanks 
are in other lands. The people generally, without reference 
to sects, are fatalists ; although some of the more enlightened 
so far discard the doctrine of inevitable destiny as to believe 
that conduct is fate, and have written treatises to prove it. 

On the whole I should judge that the religion of China is 
in nearly the same condition with that of ancient Greece and 



Addresses 267 

Rome. It is believed by the ignorant and sanctioned by the 
State; but discredited by the intelligent and cultivated, who 
think for themselves. 

This imperfect outline which I have briefly sketched, bears, 
it seems to me, but little resemblance to the picture of the 
Chinese which is commonly recognized as the only accurate 
portrait. But we have been too apt to judge of the whole 
nation from the offscourings of the Empire that surround 
Canton, which the Emperor himself, from his distant palace, 
denounces, in one of his edicts, as a den of thieves and robbers ; 
just as we are disposed to think meanly of its taste and litera- 
ture, tinctured perhaps too strongly with the tropes and 
bombast of Orientalism, from the wretched translations of 
public documents which are printed in the newspapers; the 
labor of men who are such inveterate slaves to Hteral construc- 
tion that they dare not release the thoughts of the great 
officers of a mighty Empire from the fetters of the native 
idiom into the freedom of pure and honest English, but stu- 
pidly make havoc of two languages at once. They unscru- 
pulously transform into ' ' barbarians ' ' those whom the Chinese 
mean to stigmatize with no worse name than "foreigners," 
and torture into terms of insult the Oriental phrases of courtly 
diplomacy. 

It is such a country as this, venerable for the antiquity 
of its institutions, and as the cradle of useful arts and inven- 
tions, rich in the recorded and indisputable memorials of 
forty centuries; a country which had reached the hoariness 
of age without losing the prudence and activity of manhood, 
while the nations that now hold it in contempt were either 
non-existent, or in the swaddling bands of infancy ; it is such 
a people, estimable for their reverence to learning, their quiet 
habitudes, their devotion to agriculture and the profitable 
arts; a country, favored by Heaven and by the stupendous 
eiforts of human industry with innumerable facilities for the 
employment and intercourse of its inhabitants; a people, 
adapting these facilities to their thrift and happiness, and so 
well satisfied with the goodly heritage which God has given 



268 James Watson Williams 

them that they seek no external sources of advantage, con- 
tent in the unmolested enjoyment within themselves of all 
that in their estimation is worth coveting; a country so vast 
in extent, so various in climate, so teeming with resources ; a 
people so multitudinous, so well regulated, and so highly 
civilized; it is such a country, and such a people, that Eng- 
land, in the very avarice of power and dominion, and assuming 
to be a Dictatress of Nations, seeks to reduce to the servile 
condition of homage, or to bow into compliance with her 
arbitrary requisitions. 

The pretenses with which she hopes to win mankind to a 
toleration of her grasping covetousness I design to discuss on 
another occasion. She seems to have set her heart for years 
upon a triumph fraught with mischief to half the world, and 
little glory to herself. With India before our eyes, it is diffi- 
cult to resist the conclusion, that whatever skill in arms and 
diplomacy, whatever experience in fraud and corruption, 
whatever force and wealth can do to "swell the exorbitance 
of her power," she will put in active requisition to reduce to 
vassalage the Ruler of three hundred millions of men, and to 
make dependents of those millions. To cloak her designed 
atrocities in some flimsy garb of seemliness, she tells the world 
of the insufferable selfishness of a nation that indulges in the 
moroseness of an anchorite, shunning intercourse, and warding 
off intrusion ; she gravely urges the Christian duty of forcibly 
bursting the barriers that ages of prejudice, or it may be of prin- 
ciple, have reared to obstruct that intercourse, that through 
the breach the light of a pure religion may pour in to 
illuminate the minds of a countless multitude of fellow men; 
she displays the benefits that will spring from communicating 
to this multitude the religion, the inventions, the literature, 
and the philosophy of enlightened Europe, and the advantages 
to the world of being permitted freely to ransack the treasures 
of a venerable antiquity and to learn the ancient arts of an 
ingenious people. These, and such like devices to stifle the 
consciousness of wrong, and to blind mankind to her real 
objects, may satisfy the political conscience of England, 



Addresses 269 

hackneyed as it is in the ways of self-aggrandizement; but 
notwithstanding all these, she must morally know and feel 
that her only vantage ground is her superior energy and skill. 
To the high moral vantage ground of right and justice, or 
even to that of an honest design to elevate a mighty nation to 
a position coequal with the space it fills in territory and 
numbers, she does not reach. Such a lofty and command- 
ing position as that is far, far above the ignoble aspirations 
of her selfish pride and ambition. To depress others when 
she dares, no less than to exalt herself when she can, is 
the powerful moving spring of her system of international 
intercourse. 



SECOND LECTURE. 

The duties of nations, like the duties of persons, are of two 
kinds; those of perfect, and those of imperfect, obligation. 
This is a distinction generally recognized by the writers on the 
law of nature and of nations. The perfect duties are those 
which are universally and clearly imperative, and which can- 
not be violated without justly exposing the delinquent as 
well to punishment by the person or the community he ag- 
grieves, as to the disapprobation of his own conscience and 
the judgment of God. The imperfect duties are those which, 
although morally imperative, are still discretionary, so far as 
human compulsion is concerned, unless they are reduced, by 
a tacit or expressed understanding, to that duty of perfect 
obligation which consists in fidelity to engagements. Thus, 
it is a personal duty of perfect obligation to refrain from 
violence to any man, and a national duty of perfect obligation 
to refrain from aggression upon any nation ; and an infraction 
of these duties may be lawfully punished by force. But to 
have intercourse with our neighbors, or with other nations, 
are duties of imperfect obligation; they are duties, because 
such intercourse is natural and generally conformable to the 
evident order of Providence; and they are of imperfect 



2 70 James Watson Williams 

obligation, because the performance of them is discretionary, 
and because they may be sometimes dispensed with for reasons 
that morally approve a neglect of them to our consciences. 
For this neglect, however, both persons and states are amena- 
ble to the tribunal of Heaven, which judges of motives as well 
as of acts ; yet unless they have appointed some common 
arbiter, or agreed upon some mode of compulsion, no force 
on earth can be lawfully resorted to to compel a different 
conduct. It is clear that many of the obligations which en- 
lightened reason and Christian duty impose are not of a kind 
to be enforced by any human power. We should be kind; 
but churlishness is not punishable. We should be charitable ; 
but charity cannot be exacted. We should be frank; but 
duplicity is beyond the reach of law. We should be liberal; 
but avarice, detestable as it is, is not amenable to any penal 
code. The catalogue of imperfect obligations embraces all 
those duties to our fellow men, which conscience acknow- 
ledges, but the performance of which depends upon our own 
free will. 

God having evidently designed men to be social beings, it 
is the general duty of mankind to be social. The state of 
society is a natural state, common to the barbarous and the 
civilized. Yet we occasionally see men who avoid the com- 
panionship of their fellows, and become anchorites. This 
appears to us to be a violation of their duty. God is their 
judge, and not we ; for who can say that some idiosyncrasy of 
constitution does not excuse in their case what in our own 
case might be without apology? Whether it be so or not, 
can human legislation touch the evil? The physical power of 
society may force the presumed delinquent from his retreat, 
and cause him to reappear among his fellows; but to exact 
from him the courtesies and socialness in which they cheer- 
fully indulge is equally beyond the reach of physical power 
and legal enactments. 

It is so with nations.: God has bestowed upon them facili- 
ties for intercourse and for the mutual interchange of good 
offices; and by an unequal distribution of His gifts, seems to 



Addresses 271 

have made it tlieir moral duty to intercommunicate for the 
purpose of equahzing their respective conditions, and recipro- 
cally enjoying His peculiar bounties. But the performance 
of this duty is voluntary. Every nation, in a political view, 
is the judge of its own obligations, and accountable to other 
nations only in cases of overt absolute wrong. A state may, 
after long experience, discover that connection with others is 
prolific of disorder, and tends to viciousness of life ; provoking 
the indulgence of the worst passions, and exposing to danger 
the happiness of its citizens. Who shall say that these, or 
other motives, may not justify even in the eye of Heaven, as 
they do to the State itself, a policy of exclusion ? 

Nations are equal. They acknowledge no common human 
superior. Respecting all duties of imperfect obligation, each 
judges for itself, as persons do respecting the same duties; 
and to Heaven only are they accountable. It is not for one 
nation, endowed with superior skill and strength, acquired 
perhaps by a long and successful infringement of these very 
duties, to assume to be the arbiter; nor is it for a confeder- 
acy of nations. Might, however lawfully acquired, never gives 
right ; nor does it constitute its possessor a Vicegerent of God 
to perform His presumed purposes and act in His stead. No 
human power can assume that lofty commission, without the 
most daring presumption; no human intelligence freely ac- 
knowledges its authenticity. 

All nations confess the truth of these positions ; for what 
but a confession of it is the policy of all with regard to com- 
mercial intercourse? Is there a civilized state on earth that 
does not fix for itself the measure and terms of intercommu- 
nication with the rest of the world? Some admit it more 
liberally than others; but none freely. Restrictions of some 
sort tmiversally prevail; and these indicate the general sense 
of the world that the duty of intercourse, whatever are the 
moral or economical obligations that affect it, is practically 
one of imperfect obligation, liable to the caprices of policy 
and self interest. 

The imperfect duties of States being, then, as little 



2 72 James Watson Williams 

compulsory as those of persons; and no person having the 
right to compel his neighbor to the performance of such duties, 
without some understanding that changes their character ; it 
^Uows that no nation, under the like circumstances, can law- 
fully enforce another to the performance of them. To main- 
tain the contrary, were to make weakness subservient to power, 
under the pretext of exacting a duty ; to constitute the strong- 
est the arbiter of international obligations; and to leave the 
strongest amenable only to its own conscience, which might 
be corrupted, and to God, whom it might not fear. Such a 
doctrine would strike at the roots of international law, com- 
pletely overturn all national equality, and establish on its 
.ruins a tyranny monstrous beyond conception. 

Civilized nations generally have concurred in a system 
of intercourse which avoids a resort to these elemental 
principles; while, at the same time, it acknowledges their 
existence, and the right of referring to them to define their re- 
spective obligations. This concurrence usually proceeds from 
far other motives than those of Christian duty, or a reverence 
for Christian precepts ; although by some that duty and those 
precepts are assumed to be the basis of the law of nations. 
That this law, in its practical operation, gives effect to Chris- 
tian principles is, however, no evidence that it is founded 
upon them; any more than the existence of society among 
savages is an evidence that it springs from a regard to Christian 
duty. The enlightened Pagan nations of antiquity were on a 
footing of reciprocal intercourse, governed in all essential par- 
ticulars by the same elemental principles ; and yet they had 
no eye to the requirements of Christianity. They knew noth- 
ing of it; and even Christian nations, for the regard they 
pay to it in much of their conduct, might be presumed to 
know as little. To assert, then, as a distinguished statesman 
of our own country has virtually asserted, that Christianity 
is the foundation and practical rule of international relations, 
is only another mode of asserting that to nations professing 
Christianity it belongs to dictate to Pagan nations the laws 
of intercourse, of which they are presumed to be ignorant, or 



Addresses 273 

with which they are indisposed to comply; a proposition 
which it seems to me is as fallacious and untenable as the 
whole reasoning of which it is the basis. Christian nations 
are not in a political view superior to Pagan nations. To 
affirm the contrary might be to subject one half the world to 
the tyranny of the other. 

Without further pursuing a topic which may, in the opinion 
of some, deserve deeper consideration, I conclude that nations 
may freely judge for themselves, as persons may, of the extent 
to which they will perform duties of imperfect obligation; 
that they are not responsible to each other, nor to any human 
power, for a delinquency, unless by their own voluntary agree- 
ment; that the laws of intercourse spring from the laws of 
nature which are common to all, and not from the precepts of 
Christianity which are only partially recognized ; and that the 
duty of intercourse is discretionary, and may be discharged 
or neglected without any other accountability than that 
which is due to Heaven. 

The striking national peculiarity of China is its system of 
persevering exclusion, which has so long prevented other na- 
tions from obtaining a permanent foothold within its domin- 
ions, and even from entering into those commercial relations 
which commonly exist between civilized countries. The origi- 
nal motive to this singular policy, a policy which Sparta and 
other nations of antiquity sought to establish, it is difficult 
to discover. It is probably of Tartar origin; for although 
there was never a time when free access was permitted to all 
parts of the Empire, yet, previous to the arrival of the Euro- 
peans, foreign commerce was encouraged ; and it was not until 
the Manchoos acquired the control of China in 1644, that 
foreigners were confined to the port of Canton alone. Four 
centuries before that period, the Venetian, Marco Polo, had 
visited the country, and been received with distinguished 
favor; and a residence of seventeen years had so much en- 
deared him to the Court that he foimd it difficult to obtain 
permission to return to his native country. Afterwards, 
Catholic Missionaries were received with almost equal favor; 



2 74 James Watson Williams 

made and baptized converts ; built temples ; became members 
of the Imperial College, and the chief men of science; and but 
for their indiscreet interference with the civil affairs and long 
established customs of the country, which caused their final 
expulsion, might have remained to this day, with an influence 
effective, in the lapse of so many generations, to alter materi- 
ally the character of the people. 

The strife that was occasionally waged between the first 
European adventurers in the East, the Portuguese, the Span- 
ish, the Dutch, and the English, and which gave no very 
favorable idea of their pretensions to civilization and peaceful 
habitudes, added to the circumstance mentioned by an English 
writer that "the Europeans made themselves known in the 
Eastern seas chiefly by their roguery," probably stimulated 
the Tartar jealousy of foreigners, and confirmed a policy to 
which national prejudice had considerably habituated the new 
dynasty. 

That China has a sufficiently numerous, and even super- 
abounding population of her own, is a good reason for her not 
desiring foreign accessions ; that her incredible multitudes are 
living, for the most part, in a state of quiet and good order, is 
a reason why she should be reluctant to introduce into the 
State those who might stir up dissensions and disturb the 
settled order of affairs ; but that she should strenuously refuse 
to negotiate for the regulation of external trade, is somewhat 
inexplicable. Her own commerce, however, is principally 
internal; indeed wholly so, if we leave unconsidered the semi- 
annual voyages of her junks to Japan; and even the inter- 
course between Peking and Canton, which are twelve hundred 
miles apart — an intercourse which might be carried on by sea 
— is accomplished only by means of the great rivers of the in- 
terior and by that wonderful ship canal which for nearly six 
centuries has borne on its waters, in vessels of the greatest 
burthen, for a distance of six hundred miles, the products of 
this fruitful country. This internal commerce yields enor- 
mous revenues ; and to encourage a foreign trade might, in the 
opinion of the Court, cut off the present sources which pour 



Addresses 275 

wealth into the pubhc treasury, without securing equivalent 
external supplies. 

But whatever may be the motive of this peculiar policy, 
and however repugnant the policy itself to the practice and 
feelings of other civilized countries, and to the true principles 
of political economy, it has notoriously existed for two 
hundred years, withstanding every intrigue, and such occa- 
sional force as has been urged against it. The Portuguese 
seem to have made the widest breach in it by obtaining posses- 
sion of the island of Macao, which from its position would 
seem to command the port of Canton, and which for a long 
time was the sole depot of foreign commerce. This possession, 
however, is not the absolute possession of sovereignty, as 
is frequently supposed, but is of a leasehold character; an 
annual rent being paid to the Chinese govemm.ent, and the 
town of the island being governed by a subordinate of the 
Emperor. 

The English have been the most persevering of all foreigners 
in their attempts to undermine a system which has thus far 
more effectually protected the coast of China against foreign 
intrusion, than did ever the Great Wall of the northern frontier 
protect the interior against the incursions of the Tartars. 
The first British embassy in 1793, after an ineffectual attempt 
by Lord Macartney to obtain permission to trade at other 
ports besides Canton, was dismissed with a letter to the King, 
in which the Emperor, annoiuicing the strictness of the limita- 
tion to that port alone, adds, "You will not be able to com- 
plain that I had not clearly forewarned you. Let us therefore 
live in peace and friendship, and do not make light of my 
words." Some twenty years afterwards, in 18 16, Lord Am- 
herst repeated the attempt to obtain a modification of this 
jealous restriction, but he was even more coolly dismissed 
than Lord Macartney had been, not even obtaining a hearing 
on the subject of his mission. 

As it has been the fashion to blame the Chinese for their 
conduct towards these embassies, it is but just to remark 
that, although unable to make the desired impression on the 



276 James Watson Williams 

Imperial Court, they were courteously treated, and escorted 
from Peking to Canton with their numerous retinues, at the 
expense of the Imperial Treasury. The result of the first 
embassy, and the candid and distinct announcement by the 
Emperor of the fixed policy of the government, should have 
discouraged the second; and certainly its failure under the 
circumstances, considering the stiff refusal to comply with the 
ceremonies of the Imperial Court for fear of sacrificing English 
dignity, cannot be deemed very extraordinary. 

Thus foiled in her successive endeavors to obtain a relaxa- 
tion in her favor of the system by which China, wisely or un- 
wisely, seeks to seclude herself from the world ; and stimulated 
by an incident to which I shall presently recall your attention ; 
England now has the effrontery to urge as an apology for 
her past and intended misconduct towards that unoffending- 
people, the necessity and duty of breaking up this ancient 
policy. After taking it as a favor, as it doubtless has been, 
and a most profitable favor too, to be permitted by bare tolera- 
tion to establish a factory, in common with other nations, out- 
side of Canton, she is now disposed to feel it as a grievance 
and an insult that she is not allowed to become familiar with 
the Emperor in his palace at Peking. It is as if, in private life, 
after reluctantly permitting a suspected stranger to barter his 
wares with the servants in your kitchen, with an intimation 
that his presence is not desirable even there, he should insist, 
after driving a profitable bargain with the domestics, upon 
venturing into your parlor in defiance of your injunctions, and 
claim to be as civilly treated as if he were an invited and wel- 
come guest. To show him to the street would be your natural 
impulse, and the fitting reward for such shameless insolence. 
He might, perhaps, resent your interference, and his physical 
prowess might enable him to maintain his comfortable lodg- 
ment and even to drive the lawful proprietor out. But the 
successful exercise of his force would hardly be deemed, 
among civilized people, as a mitigation of his effrontery, or an 
evidence of his right. 

But even allowing that China is politically wrong, as I am 



Addresses 277 

disposed to admit she is morally wrong, in cutting off the rest 
of the world from the advantages of her commerce, I affirm 
that of all nations England can with the least grace complain 
of such conduct and venture to chastise it. What country 
that the sun illumines with his impartial beams has ever been, 
or is, more exclusive, in spirit if not in act, than England? It 
is true, she will suffer your ships to enter her ports and convey 
thither your cotton, because she can make a profitable mer- 
chandise of that ; but let them convey your corn, and they are 
as effectually excluded as if all the guns of the Bocca Tigris 
were aimed to compel their departure. The commercial sys- 
tem of England differs from that of China in that it is a system 
of discriminating exclusion ; tending not so much to the 
benefit of the people, as to the wealth of the aristocracy. 
This discrimination stamps it with a selfish impress more dis- 
creditable than the wholesale exclusiveness of China. Its 
whole aim is to advance her own particular interests ; and she 
admits or excludes with sole reference to those. She toler- 
ates intercommunication, but it is gauged with a careful eye 
to the profits it pours into her treasury. If it do not con- 
tribute to her wealth and influence, it is fenced off by the 
aegis of protective duties ; as effectual a barrier, at least, as the 
edicts of the Son of Heaven. China is consistent and stable, 
governed by no such fluctuating impulse of selfish gain. Her 
only discrimination is one in favor of the mass, not of the 
few. She does not deny to a starving and wretched popula- 
tion, as England does, foreign supplies of subsistence; she 
admits rice, the food of her myriads, duty free ; nor does she 
pretend to deal on terms of reciprocity with the rest of the 
world, and at the same time exclude their productions by an 
arbitrary tariff that is equal in its repulsive power to a battery 
of Paixhan ordnance. She distinctly declares her policy to 
be anti-commercial; and all the trade that she tolerates with 
Europeans is an infraction of that policy. She sends no ships 
abroad except to her ancient neighbors of Japan; and it is 
through the Company of Hong Merchants alone, whom she 
holds responsible for the good conduct of foreign traders, and 



278 James Watson Williams 

the collection of the usual duties, that any commercial inter- 
course is permitted. Her avowal is virtually, "we permit all 
nations, as a matter of favor and on mere sufferance, to trade 
at Canton and at Canton alone, subject to charges that may 
be onerous, but not prohibitive, in all the products they can 
dispose of there; opium, that poisonous drug, only excepted." 
It is on these terms that England, in common with other 
Western nations, has long kept up a profitable commerce with 
Canton. 

But the permitted trade is not all that has been profitable 
to her. Of late years her gains have been enormous upon the 
importation of the only interdicted article, opium ; and as the 
trade in this has produced the ostensible provocation which 
has involved in hostilities these two great countries, it is 
desirable that its history should be fairly understood. 

In many countries of the East, particularly in those where 
Mohammedanism prevails, the use of intoxicating liquors is 
proscribed by religious precepts. Whether it be owing to the 
influence of these precepts alone, or whether the climate and 
physical causes, and the luipalatableness of the ardent stimu- 
lants produced in those countries, contribute to so desirable a 
result, it is certain that indulgence in them is by no means 
prevalent. But the inflammatory stimulus of distilled liquors 
being thus generally avoided for whatever reason, the soothing 
stimulus of opium has become a common substitute. Bengal, 
Bahar, and Allahabad in India, are regions where the poppy 
flourishes in great profusion, and the production of opium has 
long been a principal source of revenue to those provinces, or 
rather to the mistress of those provinces, the East India Com- 
pany. Bahar, particularly, is celebrated for the excellence of 
this drug, and its principal city, Patna, has given its name to 
that which is of the highest value. In China, also, there are 
districts favorable to the cultivation of the poppy; and since 
a taste for opium has spread among the people by means of 
the foreign importations, a drug which to this day, as it is 
affirmed, has no native Chinese name, has been clandestinely 
produced to a considerable extent for private use, although its 



Addresses 279 

cultivation has long been prohibited on account of its hurtful- 
ness to the "health and morals of the people." 

Not only is the cultivation of the poppy prohibited, but 
some former lamentable experience of the evil effects of in- 
dulgence in opium, whereof no trace remains, also caused the 
prohibition of that as an article of commerce ; and it has been 
indisputably and notoriously contraband ever since Euro- 
peans began to trade with the Empire. 

Among the enormities charged upon Warren Hastings as 
Governor General of Bengal is this, (and it is by no means the 
most trivial of his enormities,) of introducing into China an 
article not necessary to the support or comfort of life, but 
positively detrimental to both; and which it had been for 
years the effort of a government, that with parental care, 
regarded the health and morals of its subjects as worthy the 
protection of a penal law, most sedulously to exclude. It was 
introduced, too, under the cover of a flagrant fraud which en- 
hanced the enormity, and should forever silence an English 
tongue about to utter a malediction upon Chinese perfidy. 
In order that the unlawful cargo might escape detection, he 
was at great expense to procure ordnance to arm the vessel 
which transported it, that it might pass, according to the usual 
license of ships of war, without enquiry by the officers of 
the customs respecting its lading. The venture was success- 
ful; and led to the prosecution, by the East India Company, 
of a contraband trade in that pernicious drug, which eventu- 
ally proved more valuable than all the other English importa- 
tions combined, and even exceeded in amount the whole 
English export of teas. It was continued on the account of 
that Company alone, until the expiration of its monopoly in 
1834, when it fell into the hands of the free merchants; and 
at the time of the surrender of the opium in the English fac- 
tories in 1839, the annual value of the trade was not less than 
fifteen millions of dollars. 

England prides herself greatly and justly upon her efforts 
to end that abominable traffic which consigns the miser- 
able inhabitants of Africa to stripes and bondage. Without 



28o James Watson Williams 

contrasting her laudable zeal in these endeavors with her con- 
duct towards the tens of millions in India whom she herself holds 
in servitude the most abject, her misconduct in tolerating the 
trade in opium, which involves other millions in a worse 
bondage still, is a sufficient tarnish upon her reputation to 
obscure the glory of her humanity towards Africa, coupled as 
the exercise of that noble virtue is with the most arbitrary 
violations of the rights of nations. And as an attempt has 
been made not only by her own people, but by a venerable 
citizen of this country, to present the smuggling and confisca- 
tion of the opium lately found within the dominions of China 
in the light of a mere incident in the contest now pending be- 
tween the two coimtries, and to reject it from consideration as 
a matter of trivial concern, its real importance to the people of 
China as affecting their welfare, and to the people of England 
as affecting their revenue, is worthy the little time it will re- 
quire to illustrate it. 

In this country, it has been the effort of years to make dis- 
reputable the indulgence in stimulating liquors. It had at 
one time become so prevalent as to amount to a national vice. 
Its victims were counted not by units or tens, or any of the 
paltry decimals of our notation, but by tens of thousands 
and hundreds of thousands. If not generally felt as a public 
calamity, it had the reality of one, sweeping yearly to dis- 
honored graves more than a raging pestilence; and the exer- 
tion and self denial it has cost to achieve a partial victory over 
it, prove how deeply its roots had penetrated, and the difficulty 
of extirpating them. 

Let us fancy the conflict to have been so far successful as 
to have won the acquiescence of the popular opinion in the 
enactment of laws aiding the sympathies of the virtuous by the 
sanction of penalties and punishments to be visited upon in- 
dulgence. Imagine that to produce stimulating liquors were 
prohibited, and that to introduce them into our territories 
were to expose them to seizure and destruction; and that so 
deep were our detestation of this offence against the morals 
and happiness of a numerous people that the perpetrators of 



Addresses 281 

it were doomed to suffer imprisonment or death. Suppose 
that for a hundred years or more this great nation, under such 
a system of pains and penalties, had shut out intemperance 
with its bloated and raving train of attendants, and were in 
the complete enjoyment of all the thrift, ease and content- 
ment which a people of abstemious life are sure to attain. 
Possess yourselves, if your imaginations can picture that 
delightful state of national serenity, with the vision of a 
swarming and happy population; distracted by no internal 
contentions; ambitious of nothing but their own quiet and 
good order; pursuing a calm course of domestic industry and 
commerce; skillful in the mechanical and agricultural arts; 
esteeming literature ; covetous of no new acquisitions of terri- 
tory, but proud of that they possess, which is all the world to 
their satisfied desires ; seeking not, but shimning, all foreign 
intercourse, as likely to introduce vice and disorder; and en- 
joying within themselves all that they deem essential to the 
true comfort and happiness of life. 

In the midst of all this, England, moved by the lust of 
gain, clandestinely introduces into one of our ports a vessel 
laden with the pernicious draughts which she knows our laws 
condemn to seizure and destruction. Conscious that a gain- 
ful traffic will reward the adventurer who succeeds in evading 
the prohibition, a few unworthy citizens connive at this at- 
tempt to smuggle in a forbidden cargo. Men in public sta- 
tions, avaricious of gold, and preferring their private interests 
to their public duty, participate in the crime for the bribe of 
the profits attending it. Encouraged by the success of this 
experiment, some great monopoly of England, whose broad 
possessions are fruitful of the poisonous merchandise, fits out 
vessel after vessel laden with the interdicted stimulant; and 
under the cover of a fair and honorable trade scatters it pro- 
fusely throughout the land. A taste for forbidden indulgence 
gradually pervades all ranks of men, until the evil becomes so 
threatening and palpable that the thunders of fresh edicts are 
wielded in behalf of temperance and morals. But so con- 
tagious is bad example that the law has lost its terrors ; and 



282 James Watson Williams 

what was at first a doubtful and hazardous venture bceomes 
a chief article of merchandise, exhausting the wealth and 
undermining the welfare of the people. 

Behold now the quiet, the thrift and the happiness with 
which a century of abstemious habits had blessed us, already 
become a partial sacrifice to the cupidity of foreign intruders 
and the demon of self-indulgence; ready to be again pre- 
cipitated into the yawning gulf of dissoluteness, unless the 
arm of the law can successfully interpose its original terrors. 

At length, after forty years of ineffectual warnings, and of 
impotent attempts to stay this appalling trade, the Govern- 
ment determines to strike a blow that shall be felt in the 
-most sensitive part, and arouse the delinquents to a feeling of 
its earnestness. Its officers are commanded to seize the con- 
traband cargoes and commit them to destruction. It is done. 
The loss of millions of money awakens the remorseless traders, 
if not to a sense oi their criminality, to a thirst for vengeance 
and a determination to exact a forcible retribution. Their 
cause is espoused by their Sovereign ; and thus the shameful 
violation of law and morality which they have knowingly 
committed, and which, committed against that Sovereign, 
would have branded them with ignominy and been followed 
by punishment, is dignified into a national offence, and be- 
comes the provocation to hostility and aggression. Which 
of us, in such a case, it being our own case, would not justify 
the Government in vindicating the majesty of the law; and 
if that vindication were made the pretext of foreign invasion, 
which of us would not readily grasp his weapons to defend so 
righteous and necessary an exercise of national interference? 

What I have thus stated hypothetically of the people of 
the United States is really the case of the Chinese. Their 
conduct in seizing the smuggled opium needs no further jus- 
tification than would our own conduct in the case supposed, 
or than it will promptly meet in the hearts of all honest men ; 
their conduct in destroying it, elevates them far above the 
suspicion of any sinister view to their own pecimiary profit in 
its seizure. In all its aspects, the act was one that must com- 



=^>*«» 



Addresses 283 

mend itself to the approval of the world. When the first 
cargo of the drug was conveyed to Canton under the auspices 
of Warren Hastings, the trade in it was known to be illicit. 
In the strong language of an English writer "it has always 
been contraband." Eloquent edict after edict had for suc- 
cessive years before the seizure been fulminated against it, in 
terms of earnest entreaty and remonstrance; and notwith- 
standing the shameful and interested negligence of the subor- 
dinates of the Government in enforcing the observance of 
them, the earnestness of the Imperial Court was made abun- 
dantly palpable in the bambooing, banishment and public 
execution of men of all ranks, from Mandarin to artisan, for 
infringing the law prohibiting the sale and use of the noxious 
drug. To strike the greater terror, and to make the impartial 
justice of the Emperor more awfully evident, two native opium 
dealers, but a little time before the confiscation of the English 
opium, were executed in sight of the foreign factories. Fur- 
ther than this, one of the chief men of the Empire, who had 
recommended that opium should be admitted as a dutiable 
article, and that a traffic which he doubtless supposed could 
not be prevented, should be legalized, was degraded to the 
lowest rank and banished to the confines of Tartary, as one 
guilty of a kind of treason against the welfare of the State. 
About the same time, too, one of the Hong merchants, who 
was implicated in a smuggling transaction with an English- 
man, was sent to Whampoa to suffer the degrading punishment 
of the wooden collar. Should the Emperor thus promptly 
punish his own subjects and should he allow insolent foreign- 
ers to escape with impunity? Such was by no means his dis- 
position. The scenes of 1838, in which the pimishment of 
these native Chinese was the prominent feature, were followed 
in 1839 by a long and most earnest proclamation, closing with 
an exhortation to the traders to "send back to its country 
every one of the receiving ships then anchored in the outside 
waters." This proclamation was followed by the arrival at 
Canton of a Special Commissioner of the Emperor, charged 
with the duty of enquiring into abuses, and especially of 



284 James Watson Williams 

eradicating the vice of opium smoking. He entered upon the 
discharge of his office with a spirit and intelligence that 
astonished the subordinate officers; and no sooner had he 
discovered the actual state of things, than he declared, by 
proclamation, that unless within three days the holders of 
opium should submit to the Government and pledge themselves 
against future traffic in the drug, all of it within the Chinese 
waters should be forfeited, all trade stopped and the aggres- 
sors be subjected to personal severity. The Hong merchants 
were also required to procure the necessary pledges, with a 
threat in case of non-compliance that two of that body would 
be selected for punishment. The inefficient enforcement, by 
corrupt and implicated officers, of former proclamations, led 
the traders to doubt the sincerity of this ; but the promptness 
of the new Commissioner soon satisfied them that he was not 
a man of forms and bombast, but direct, bold and efficient. 
Discovering this, they attempted to bribe him, as they had 
bribed other subordinates of the Emperor; but he was not 
only proof against corruption, but of a temperament to look 
upon the offer as an insult. Having invited the chief man of 
the foreign dealers in opium to meet him within the City of 
Canton in order to admonish him, and the invitation being 
declined, with suspicious intimations of the good faith of the 
Commissioner, he still, with a courtesy that deserves to be 
appreciated,, stayed all further coercive proceedings over a 
Sunday, out of regard to the foreigners' "worship-day." The 
natives were prohibited from entering the factories, and the 
foreign residents were placed in duress, until a compliance 
with the proclamation should be exacted. The English 
Superintendent, who was at Macao, forced his way to Canton, 
and volimtarily shared the confinement of his countrymen 
there. Being satisfied that the Imperial Government was in 
earnest, and that the Commissioner Lin was not a man to be 
trifled with, he chose to consider this duress, which so far as 
he himself was concerned was voluntary, as a sufficient reason 
for calling upon the English dealers to deliver into his hands 
all their opium; and committed the egregious blunder of 



Addresses 285 

compromising his Sovereign to a protection of the smugglers, 
by a pledge of remimeration for any loss that should follow a 
compliance with his requisition. Of course, an article which 
might not otherwise be readily disposed of, was gladly de- 
livered up to so responsible a purchaser as the English Gov- 
ernment, and upwards of twenty thousand chests, valued at 
about nine millions of dollars, found their way into the hands 
of the Superintendent. This vast quantity was by him sur- 
rendered to the Chinese Commissioner, who caused it to be 
destroyed as rapidly as possible, by placing it in large vats, 
where it was exposed to the action of lime and salt, and from 
which it was emptied by sluices into the river. The object of 
the confinement of the foreigners being thus accomplished, 
they were liberated; but even during these proceedings, the 
English, unfaithful to their pledges, were carrying on a con- 
traband trade along the Eastern shore, in armed vessels. 

A few weeks after this, the Imperial Commissioners, it is 
stated, sought by letter the co-operation of the Queen of Eng- 
land in the suppression of the production of opium and of the 
trade in it, remarking very reasonably that "as we prohibit 
our people from using it, so you should prohibit the subjects 
of your honorable country from preparing it." 

This letter the English Superintendent refused to transmit, 
because it was addressed to the "Foreign Queen Victoria," or, 
as he chose to consider it, "the Barbarian Queen Victoria," 
and because of other expressions which he deemed might be 
not quite respectful to the ear of majesty. An English gen- 
tleman, however, pronounces it to have been a "very good 
and sensible letter, and, with the exception of one or two ex- 
pressions, respectful enough throughout." If, however, the 
Commissioner's Chinese was no' better than the Superin- 
tendent's English, the document could not have been very 
offensive, for it would have, been quite unintelligible. 

Thus far the conduct of the Chinese seems to be rather 
praiseworthy than exceptionable. They proceeded to ex- 
treme measures with moderation and with abundant warning 
of their successive steps. 



286 James Watson Williams 

Until the vice of opium smoking began considerably to 
prevail, it is true the prohibitory law was not much regarded. 
In 1 82 1, however, the attention of the Government was 
aroused, and the opium ships were driven away from Wham- 
poa, a place twelve miles distant from the foreign factories, 
and they formed a smuggling dep6t at Lintin, an island east- 
ward of Macao. Not long afterwards one of the censors of 
the Government presented a memorial to the Emperor, show- 
ing the abuses of the opium trade and the rapid inroads of the 
pernicious habit of smoking among all classes of people. 

"It seems," he says, "that opium is almost entirely imported 
from abroad; worthless subordinates in ofhces and nefarious trad- 
ers first introduced the abuse; young persons of family, wealthy 
citizens, and merchants adopted the custom; until at last it 
reached the common people. I have learned on enquiry, from 
scholars and official persons, that opium smokers exist in all the 
provinces, but the larger proportion of these are found in the gov- 
ernment offices; and that it would be a fallacy to suppose that 
there are not smokers among all ranks of civil and military officers, 
below the station of provincial governors and their deputies. The 
magistrates of districts issue proclamations, interdicting the clan- 
destine sale of opium, at the same time that their kindred and 
clerks smoke it as before. Then the nefarious traders make a 
pretext of the interdict for raising the price. The police, influ- 
enced by the people in the public offices, become the secret pur- 
chasers of opium, instead of laboring for its suppression; and thus 
all interdicts and regulations become vain." 

In consequence of this strong representation the Emperor, in 
1833, with the advice of the Criminal Board of the Empire, 
published a new law inflicting severe punishments upon the 
buyers, sellers and smokers 'of opium ; and with a just dis- 
tinction that might well be an example to the penal legislation 
of other countries, exposing to much severer penalties than 
the common people, those officers of the State who should be 
found guilty of offences against the law. Various subsequent 
edicts were published, accompanied with earnest attempts at 
enforcement; and notwithstanding that the native communi- 



Addresses 287 

cation between Canton and the new smuggling dep6t at Lintin 
was cut off, the importations continued to increase, until the 
seizure and confiscation in 1839. 

It will thus be seen that for at least eighteen years the 
Emperor was notoriously engaged in active efforts to stay a 
trade that threatened to subvert the good order and happiness 
of the Empire, and that the pretext of the traders that the 
final act of seizure was an unjustifiable surprise upon them is 
utterly unfounded. They had been abundantly forewarned ; 
and could not but know that whatever laxity and indulgence 
had been exhibited in earlier times, affording them an excuse 
for persevering in their baneful commerce, the laws were now 
to be firmly enforced. But with the usual cupidity and bold- 
ness of such adventurers, they determined to continue their 
evasions until they should be forcibly compelled to desist; 
and when the extreme measure of confiscation was at length 
resorted to, then with the usual insolence and injustice of such 
adventurers they charge upon the Chinese a sudden resort to 
violent measures and a want of good faith. What measure 
of human patience can be expected to endure such shameless 
effronter}^ ! 

The seizure and destruction of the opium was followed by 
a series of petty hostilities and aggressions, in which the Eng- 
lish seem, to say the least, to be equally blamable with the 
Chinese. The conduct of the Commissioner Lin in ordering 
off all English residents upon short notice, and without suffi- 
cient supplies, is complained of, and I will not say unjustly, 
as an act of undue severity; and he may have transcended 
the bounds of moderation, and even his duty and his powers. 
Scenes of violence and bloodshed occurred tending to provoke 
ill feeling on both sides, and much that is deserving of reproba- 
tion was the necessary consequence. The foreign trade with 
Europeans was interdicted, but during all these difficulties, 
and ever since, the smuggling of opium was still extensively 
continued ; so extensively that during one year since the rup- 
ture, the annual value of the contraband importation amounted 
to twenty millions of dollars, a fourth greater value than it had 



288 James Watson Williams 

reached at any previous period. Such a state of things may 
well account for any occasional violence on the part of the 
Chinese authorities, provoked to madness by the difficulty of 
ending an illicit traffic, and by the pertinacity of the traders 
in violating the laws. 

As might naturally be expected British India, accustomed to 
enormities and ever alive to the dictates of self interest, was 
prompt to arm in defence of a trade so valuable to herself as 
that of opium ; and in the course of a year equipped an arma- 
ment which declared Canton in a state of blockade, and captured, 
with the most atrocious exhibitions of pillage and cruelty, the 
island of Chusan on the Eastern coast, about midway between 
Canton and Peking. Negotiations were now set on foot for 
an arrangement of the difficulties, in which the English de- 
manded about fifteen millions of dollars by way of com- 
pensation; but during the pendency of these, and probably 
to hasten their termination, the English fleet amused itself by 
attacking and destroying forts in the port of Canton. Pre- 
liminary arrangements were finally agreed upon, highly favor- 
able to the English, and involving the cession of the island 
and harbor of Hong-Kong, some thirty five miles to the East 
of Macao, of which they immediately took possession. The 
Emperor, in the exercise of his undoubted prerogative, refused 
to sanction a treaty which sacrificed a portion of his domin- 
ions, and obligated hini to pay a large sum to indemnify an 
insolent foreign power for "expenses incurred in acts of the 
most unjustifiable aggression. The English Government had 
in the meantime lent its aid to the power of British India, and 
the refusal of the Emperor was followed by the capture and 
destruction of the forts which protected Canton, with no loss 
to the English force, but with considerable sacrifice of Chinese 
lives and property. An armistice was agreed on, by the pro- 
vincial officers, which the Emperor still refused to sanction. 
An attack upon Canton itself followed this second refusal, 
which was successful in the destruction of some five thousand 
Chinese and the obtaining, by prompt payment, of six millions 
of dollars for a ransom of the city. 



Addresses 289 

It seems to me that there are sufficient indications in 
these transactions, coupled with the instructions of the British 
Government to its new Emissary to China, as they are shad- 
owed forth in the newspapers, and with his recent outrages 
upon territory, property and Hfe, to point out the real design 
of the English in their offensive demonstrations. To a nation 
staggering under a weight of indebtedness sufficient to crush 
a people of any other than Saxon blood, and covetous of ex- 
tended empire, to retain fifteen millions of dollars of revenue 
a year, and to gain possession of a vast dominion, will sanctify 
any pretext for a war however unfounded, or however odious. 
It is not the petty indignity of rejecting her embassies; it is 
not the occasional overreaching and perfidy of Chinese sub- 
ordinates, unknown to and unsanctioned by the Imperial 
Court ; it is not the exaction by that Court of the performance 
of ceremonies which the stately and unbending embassadors 
of England deem debasing to personal and national dignity; 
it is not the simple loss of twenty thousand chests of opium 
by an act in itself confessedly justifiable ; it is not the corrup- 
tion of the provincial officers of Canton who connived for 
years at a trade which poured wealth into their private coffers, 
and seemed to tolerate by a semi-official waiver of legal penal- 
ties a lucrative contraband commerce; it is not any of these 
that prompts England into this war. All combined would not 
justify hostility on the part of the most punctilious nation on 
earth. Her offence is palpable to the common sense of the 
world. No subsequent blessings which she may confer upon 
China can atone for it ; no subsequent ill-desert on the part of 
the Chinese can retroactively palliate it. She has voluntarily 
assumed. the attitude of the original aggressor, with no imme- 
diate provocation to become so, that the laws of nature, of 
nations, or of God, can recognise as an apology. If she seeks 
the refuge of any pretext, other than that which her superior 
might affords, she will look in vain for it in the conduct of 
China towards herself. The real motive of her hostility is the 
ever prevailing one of gain and self-aggrandizement ; the real 
pretext with which she hopes to conceal her motive is that of 



290 James Watson Williams 

a philanthropy co-extensive with the world, and the alleged 
duty of overthrowing the peculiar policy of China which 
severs her from intercourse with all other people. 

I admit that China may be morally wrong in this policy 
which infringes that wise design of Providence that leads 
communities, no less than persons, to be social. But has 
God constituted England his Vicegerent to enforce his pro- 
visions? Is it for her to assume, in behalf of all other nations, 
the right to enforce upon China the performance of a duty 
imperfect in its obligations, practically discretional, although 
it may be abstractly imperative? She should first cast out 
the beam from her own eye before she can see clearly to pluck 
the mote from another. She, of all nations, is the most 
amenable, in the spirit of her conduct, to the charge which 
she prefers against China; and if that offence against the 
moral order of Heaven is punishable by human interference, 
she herself should be first visited with the penalty. 

But it is said that she designs to Christianise China. What ! 
Christianise China by force? If she designed to Mohammedanise 
it, the sword were indeed the proper weapon; but it is not 
the weapon of the Prince of Peace. England, however, has 
already enough of the world to Christianise, without seeking 
a new arena for the exercise of her doubtful benevolence. 
She planted her foot in India two centuries and a half ago; 
and in what condition now are the one hundred and fifty 
millions of India? Has she devoted half the effort and zeal 
to Christianise these, that she has spent in contriving how to 
impoverish and degrade them, and to enrich herself? She 
has possessions in Africa; has she Christianised those? Had 
she expended a tithe of the talent, resources and energy in 
Christianising the world, that she has lavished in subduing it, 
China might perhaps by this time be the only remaining field 
for her humane exertions; and we might be disposed to ex- 
cuse a little incipient force for the ultimate accomplishment 
of a grand design. But with our knowledge of her acts, we 
may well be pardoned for doubting the sincerity of her 
professions. Her enterprises, begun with the fairest apparent 



Addresses 291 

motives, are extremely apt to end in something that redounds 
more to her benefit, than to her glory. 

The arrogance of England is not more strikingly mani- 
fested in her insolent demands upon China, than it has fre- 
quently been in her exactions from the rest of the world. She 
has been accustomed to assume to dictate, and weaker nations 
have been habituated to look upon it as. a matter of course 
that she should. For a long period she not only claimed the 
dominion of the seas, the common easement of mankind ; but 
her naval power enabled her to maintain it. She still adheres 
to the right of search as a badge of her maritime supremacy. 
The cannon's mouth has for ages been the persuasive organ 
of her national eloquence, by the potency of which she has 
won power, dominion and wealth, in all quarters of the globe. 
Her policy is that of aggrandizement ; and in pursuing it she 
overlooks not only the elemental principles of political econ- 
omy, but the true and permanent interest of her subjects. 

Were it not for her, the moral obligation of kingdoms 
freely to intercommunicate, as one great fraternity, would now 
be no mere Utopianism, but a practical reality. ' The whole 
jealous system of self-protection would be exploded as one 
unworthy of civilization, and in conflict with all liberal and 
enlightened sentiments. But she prefers, from prejudices 
and views as ill founded as those of the Chinese, to set an 
example of pitiful selfishness, which other nations are com- 
pelled to follow if they would not sacrifice their own vital in- 
terests to her enormous voracity of gain. Would she but 
release commerce from the shackles with which her own 
policy has so long fettered it, by blotting out her whole system 
of restrictive duties, the world would speedily attain to a 
freedom of intercourse bounded only by its capacity of pro- 
duction and transmission; and the family of nations, instead 
of presenting to the Eye of Heaven a brotherhood at enmity, 
jarring with discords, abounding with mutual jealousies, ex- 
pending their strength and resources in offence and defence, 
maintaining the attitude and nourishing the provocations of 
perpetual hostility; would exhibit the sublime spectacle of a 



292 James Watson Williams 

brotherhood at peace, intent upon mutual accommodation 
and a free interchange of good offices^ sharing each with the 
other, in the noblest courtesy, the bounties of God and the 
products of their various industry. 

In all general questions, therefore, touching restrictions 
upon a free and liberal intercourse such as becomes humanity, 
I maintain that England, considering her mighty influence 
and weighty example, is the most culpable of all nations, and 
the first to be arraigned, for indulging in herself and so en- 
couraging in others, a spirit of exclusiveness. It is not for 
her, with her prolix code of prohibitions, and her formidable 
catalogue of imposts and monopolies, to claim that her stand- 
ard shall be deferred to and universally sanctioned. If she 
has a right to say to America, "we will not suffer a grain of 
your superabounding com to be sold in our starving marts," 
China has an equal right to say to England, ' ' the same pro- 
hibition which you lay upon corn, we lay upon all the products 
of your industry." 

In the present contest, it is by no means certain that the 
skill and courage of England will be eventually successful. 
In the words of an Englishman, who was resident at Canton 
during the difficulties of two years since, she "has a bad, a 
notoriously unjust, cause to build upon." Triumph after 
triumph may perch upon her standards. She may burn 
Canton ; she may pillage the Imperial City ; she may ravage 
twelve hundred miles of exposed sea coast ; she may inflict 
immeasurable injury upon ah unwarlike people whom two 
centuries of peace have unfltted for a prompt defiance of 
foreign hostility and among whom the military art is in its 
infancy. But if England be powerful in talent, energy and 
skill, it is not to be forgotten that a just cause enabled weak 
America to contend successfully against her. It is not to be 
forgotten that China, too, has a just cause, and that she is 
powerful in her multitudes ; that she is defending her hearths 
and altars ; and that provocation and warfare will arouse her 
people to courage and compel them to discipline ; nor is it to 
be overlooked, in a contemplation of contingencies, that she 



Addresses 293 

is on amicable terms with Russia, that jealous and formidable 
power of the North, the only nation with which she has ever 
concluded a treaty, or which has access to the Imperial Capi- 
tal. Unlike India, which was subjugated piecemeal, her 
different provinces acknowledging no common head, China is 
a united government, acting with a single impulse. In the 
words of the same Englishman, " If the Chinese are determined, 
as a nation, to resist, then, I fear, the scale of warfare on 
which we must engage will be of such magnitude as to be to- 
tally out of the power of the British Empire to follow up." 

Nothing can lead one to suspect the ultimate fidelity of 
China to herself, but the circumstance that her original people 
may still incline to throw off the yoke of the Manchoos, which 
for nearly two centuries has been quietly borne, and to which 
such a lapse of time has likely accustomed them. If any lurk- 
ing desire still remains to release themselves from that do- 
minion, the intrigues and bribes of England may waken it 
into a powerful auxiliary, for the advancement of her own 
designs; and we ought not then to be surprised if we see a 
tool of England seated in the palace of the mighty Empire, 
and his subjects the vassals of British policy and the forced 
contributors to British wealth. Nothing short of such a 
traitorous self-sacrifice can enable England to make a con- 
quest of China. But if she should be successful in battering 
down the exclusive policy of that eremite among kingdoms, 
and should moderate her ambition to the attainment of that 
end alone, we might cheerfully accord to her the merit of 
having achieved an important and beneficial object, but by 
measures which can never receive the sanction of law or con- 
science. The result may redound to her glory; but the means 
of its accomplishment must forever cross her escutcheon with 
a bar of disgrace. 



ADDRESS AT THE GREAT HUMBOLDT CELEBRA- 
TION, AT THE FAIR GROUND, IN UTICA, N. Y., 
ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869. 

THE century and a half which elapsed from the day when 
Bacon inaugurated the new philosophy, and so grandly 
reviewed the whole domain of human knowledge, to the birth 
of Humboldt, had amassed a great accumulation of experi- 
ence and observation conducted in the spirit of that philos- 
ophy, which awaited the advent of some comprehensive and 
inductive mind to generalize it. To this long accumula- 
tion, the active and indefatigable spirit of Humboldt, aided 
by the experiments and researches of his eminent scientific 
contemporaries, made wonderful and important contribu- 
tions. As Bacon had appropriated all human knowledge for 
his domain, and proved his ability for such a high sover- 
eignty, and earned the title of the Chancellor of Nature, so 
Humboldt, with equal authority, claimed all cosmical know- 
ledge for his, and earned that of the Privy Councillor of na- 
ture; and well he proved that there was no presumption in 
his pretensions. He made himself, by unexampled diligence 
and thorough and orderly study of all the departments of 
physical science, the master of all, as if each were his par- 
ticular end, so that his accomplishments and learning were 
special as well as universal. His ardor in his pursuits sur- 
passed that of most men with whom he might be ranked. He 
was patient, courageous and indefatigable in his earnest 
search after all the facts which supply knowledge; and that 
search led him not only unflinchingly, but even pleasurably, 
through fatigues, perils and self-denials which most men of 
equal intellectual power would shun, seeking rather the quiet 

294 



Addresses 295 

and physically inactive life of the study, or the less secluded 
one of the club or the scientific association. Wherever he 
went, in most of the latitudes and longitudes of the world, he 
was accompanied by the instruments of science to verify his 
observations, and to be the constant unimpeachable witnesses 
of his sincere devotion to the truth, which it was his object to 
gather and apply. He had not only the perspicacity to ana- 
lyze, but the capacity to enjoy nature; and his earlier works 
exhibited in description the enthusiasm of poetical feeling. 
Age made him somewhat more didactic. 

His first travels were accomplished before middle life, and 
his last at a period when most men begin to look for repose. 
The interval was one of study, and large conversance with men 
of scientific or political eminence. His works were written in 
various languages — Latin, French and German ; and in all he 
studied to avoid the sarcasm of Goethe that "the Germans 
have the art of making science inaccessible." He wished to 
popularize it, and his Views of Nature, his Cosmos and his 
universal name, testify how far he succeeded. 

Humboldt's was a long life; and either the active or the 
sedentary part was each an ordinary lifetime as regards years, 
and each twice an ordinary lifetime as regards work and ac- 
complishment. He was, so to speak, a double man,' — one for 
the active world, and one for the study. Never, perhaps, by 
nature and by accomplishments, was any one better fitted 
and equipped for the remarkable position which universal 
consent awarded to him; the first naturalist, or cosmist, if 
such a word will pass, and the scientific patriarch, of the 
century now passing away, and with which his adult years 
and labors were coincident. Of all the able scientific men of 
a century so conspicuous for the advancement of science, it is 
not likely that there was one with qualifications equal to his, 
for making a new survey of those expanding fields of cosmical 
knowledge which Bacon had pointed out as about to fructify 
with exuberant harvests under the cultivation of ardent minds 
and skillful and patient observers, content to conquer nature 
by yielding to her; who should, in the "distant ages," enlarge 



296 James Watson Williams 

the botinds of human knowledge by pursuing the true phi- 
losophy. To stand upon and master this vantage ground, 
which was but dimly opened to the eyes of Bacon, as the land 
of Canaan to the distant vision of Moses, was the forttmate 
lot of Humboldt. Nothing but a master mind and a long life 
could make it a base for a vast and comprehensive generaliza- 
xion. To review and systematize such a miscellaneous re- 
pository required, if not as great genius, greater labor and 
more years than to point the way and prophesy the results. 
There were men of Humboldt's generation who, in detached 
fields of investigation and experiment, perhaps surpassed him ; 
but there was no one whose studies and observations were at 
once so versatile and so comprehensive, as to fit him equally 
for the grand review of all human knowledge. He was also 
favored by his easy fortune, his independent position, his 
noble birth, his courtly standing and his healthy and pro- 
tracted days, for the task of analyzing and summing up the 
accumulations of his own busy and inquisitive life, added to 
the mass of facts and experiments garnered by his predeces- 
sots and his contemporaries. The little that is left of that 
century would, as regards him and his usefulness, have been 
decrepitude ; for his years lacked but a decade to enable him 
to join in the universal festival that this day celebrates the 
centennial of his birth. A few days longer would have ripened 
his years to ninety ; a remarkable longevity, considering his ex- 
posures to perils, and his indefatigable labors of mind and body. 
The name of Humboldt is not only a scientific name — it 
resounds as a household name among all civilized people. 
His reputation is cosmopolitan. The men who without the 
blazon and clangor of martial exploits have attained an equal 
renown with Humboldt are rare indeed. He has the fame of a 
great and comprehensive, as well as of a minute and versatile 
mind ; capable of observing the most microscopic details and 
of grasping the widest conclusions — ^thorough in investigation, 
and instinctive in generalization. In the scientific and lit- 
erary circles of the nineteenth century no man ranks higher 
than he, and probably no man, at this late period of it, can 



Addresses 297 

rise superior to him for variety of accurate and systematic 
knowledge. He has doubtless generalized all physical science 
more imderstandingly and completely than any man living 
has an equal capacity to do, whatever may be his genius or 
his natural gifts. His influence on science, in the judgment 
of an eminent judge, is incalculable. He made botany at- 
tractive ; he founded climatology ; he simplified complex phe- 
nomena to common apprehensions ; and he crowned his labors 
by filling up large vacant and indefinite outlines of the great 
chart of human knowledge, roughly traced by the hand of 
Bacon two centuries before, and by giving the sanction of his 
venerable authority to these amplifications and advancements 
of the sciences. What he doubtless intended for his great 
work and the finish of his scientific life, was his Cosmos; the 
special object of which was, as he himself says, "to combat 
those errors which derive their source from a vicious empiri- 
cism and from imperfect induction" — that is, as I suppose, 
to preserve the true spirit of science by adopting and sum- 
marizing the fair and well sustained inductions from the un- 
disputed facts and observations already at any time garnered, 
and to set them down as fixed and solid foundations of human 
knowledge, while empiricism and fresh observations continue 
the pursuit after further additions. He himself says that 
"we shall never succeed in exhausting the immeasurable 
riches of nature, and no generation of men will ever have 
cause to boast of having comprehended the total aggregation 
of phenomena." All science is progress without termination, 
so long as men will search and observe, and will record their 
researches and experience. Science, like art, is long, even 
compared with the length of days attained by Humboldt, who 
comprehended so much. Another era will doubtless come 
when the whole lifetime of some other Humboldt must be ex- 
hausted in fitting himself to prepare another Cosmos more 
extensive than his, and embracing a wider circle of knowledge 
than now exists; for there is no end of observation, experi- 
ment and discovery, and so no end of induction and general- 
izing. Every century must have a fresh survey of the field of 



298 James Watson Williams 

science; and happy will that century be that can command 
the resoiirces of one as equal to that task as Humboldt was to 
his. However he may be surpassed in the advancing pace of 
human acquirements, he can never be forgotten as an example 
of how to observe, how to compare, how to comprehend vastly, 
and how to generalize summarily and clearly. 

I have confined myself to Humboldt as a man of science. 
In other respects, his character was pure and shadowed by no 
suspicions. The memory of Bacon is unfortunately spotted; 
that of his distant follower is, I believe, without a stain. He 
had not the ambition that sought political distinctions; he 
rather avoided them, except as they might advance or deco- 
rate science. For himself he desired but travel or study, both 
of which he made incessant labor. He rose early, and yet 
rnuch of his work was done after midnight. Think of a man' 
who had to peruse and perhaps to answer more than two 
hundred letters a day, and that at a time of life when nature 
ordinarily seeks to draw the curtains about her infirmities, 
and to wrap herself in quiet and obscurity. He had early 
harnessed himself to the service of nature, and had pursued 
her always with ardor and courage until she thought fit to 
relieve him from protracted duty, and to dismiss him, we 
may hope, to the enjoyment of revelations surpassing all his 
worldly visions, and enlarging his Cosmos to the widest bounds 
of a universe to us invisible; passing "the flaming bounds of 
time and space ' ' ; where vision shall be neither microscopic 
nor telescopic, but where everything shall be seen face to face, 
and not in a glass darkly. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date. Sept. 2009 



PreservationTechnologies 

IS PRCSi 

Drive 
I, PA 160 



A WORLn LE/.nER IM COLLECTIONS PRCSERVfflOM 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



DDDIlilibSES^^ 




